Shadow Saves Them All
by Roy McCoy
Summary: Christmas Eve, the day before the most wonderful day of the year. But a certain ultimate life form secludes himself from everyone refusing to get into the spirit. Maria the Hedgehog is even having some trouble. Meanwhile, Dr. Eggman plans something so evil and devious that Maria could be put in serious trouble. During all this, a mysterious man watches over them, what will happen?
1. Chapter 1: Mission Assigned

Calculating…

Dimension located: Primary planet… Earth.

Target of Interest…. Identifying… Shadow the Hedgehog.

Identification points: black hedgehog, red streaks in fur, 3 foot 3.

**Mission: **Prevent alteration in timeline, cause: **Unknown.**

Discover the reason for timeline alteration involving this being and act accordingly.

…

This is your mission Mediator, do you accept?

The cold voice of the computer echoed through the small dark room filled with machinery. A lone man around the age of eighteen stood there alone with only the light of the computer to show his face. With a small grin he pressed a button on the keyboard in front of him labeled; ACCEPT.

"Yes. I've been yearning to see this hedgehog for quite a while now,"

The computer screen glowed a light green light as the word; ACCEPT grew larger on the screen and then shut down. A small circle of light illuminated on the floor around the man and he was instantly teleported from the room.

"Shadow the Hedgehog huh? Heh Heh Heh, sounds like fun,"


	2. Chapter 2: Rouge's Gift

Shadow Saves them All

Chapter 2

A cold crisp night was welcomed by station square and all its residents as the cold winter weather continued to gently tickle the red noses of the kind people. And the members of the Sonic team were all enjoying themselves as well. It was December 23rd, two days from Christmas and everyone was excited. Vector Espio and Charmy were in a car on their way to Cream's house. Vector was happy and cheerful as he hummed 'Jingle bells' while driving. Charmy and Espio were both just as merry doing a Christmas crossword puzzle in the backseat.

"I can't wait to see what Cream and her mama are doing for the holidays!" Vector finally shouted with a vigorous voice, which startled his comrades in the backseat.

"Yeah!" Charmy said happily. "I hope they made cookies!" Charmy started to fly in the car, his childish excitement was too much to contain.

"We should be thankful they invited us over, and not jump into asking for sweets," Espio said to Charmy with a calm tone. Charmy stopped flying and sat down with a sad face on. He hated it when Espio lectured him on simple stuff, it made Charmy feel impolite. Espio smiled at Charmy and recovered quickly saying ; "But I'm sure they'll be very happy to see us Charmy," He patted his bee friend on the head and Charmy smiled his big smile again. "Yeah! Hurry Vector! I wanna get there fast!"

Charmy started barking 'Faster Faster!' At Vector over and over, irritating the alligator as he drove. As they turned left into the town square a figure stood on top of a snow covered building. He was not a hedgehog however, no… he was human. He had on blue jeans and a blue T-shirt, with a black jacket and a red scarf. The snow blew past him as he continued to listen to the Choatix Crew go about their business until they were out of range.

"Well, I guess those three don't have anything to do with the problem. I'd better check on the other candidates," He turned around and began to run at incredibly fast speeds, nearly as fast a Sonic. He jumped off the building and landed on the road, sprinting about fifteen miles in no time until he stopped right in front of an apartment building. He walked up to it and buzzed in the front door. He went up the stairs to the fourth floor and came to room 412.

He knocked on the door and waited, a woman's voice said 'coming!' and footsteps were heard as the door was opened only to see a small white bat in front of him. Rouge.

"Hello Rouge," the man said with a stern look on his face. Rouge immediately recognized the man and said; "Dylan! Oh it's been too long! Come in come in!" she said gesturing for him to enter. Dylan stepped inside and saw the apartment was decorated with some Christmas decorations. Santa cookie jar, wreath on the glass door leading to the patio, but what caught his eye was the two glowing red and green lights she had put up over the fireplace. A glass Santa was riding in a glass sleigh that held two large glowing objects in it, one red one green.

Dylan picked them both up as Rouge closed the door. "So, I see you're still collecting chaos emeralds," Rouge looked over at him as she got some eggnog out of the fridge.

"Oh yeah! I got one of those from an old ditch I was flying by! The other one I swiped from Knuckles when he wasn't looking," Rouge put on her trademark smile of slyness and deviousness and continued to pour the eggnog as Dylan sat down on the couch, juggling the two emeralds.

"So, what brings you back here? Last time you were here was when Eggman stole the master emerald for the first time, and Sonic and Knuckles teamed up to get it back," Rouge asked. Dylan stopped juggling the emeralds and sat up on the couch.

"I know, I come here whenever there are serious power problems, and something big is headed this way that I have to stop," he said calmly. He continued to stare at the emeralds, gazing into their glowing light.

"The Chaos Emeralds… where did they come from? What was their purpose? Even my higher ups don't know," Dylan thought to himself.

"Well, anyway, it's great to finally see you again," Rouge said handing him his glass of eggnog. Dylan sighed and threw the two emeralds right back into the little sleigh he took them from. She sat down next to him as he drank it and she turned on the T.V. and browsed the channels. As they sat there the cold snowflakes began to fall outside, little falling sparkles reflecting off the light of the city. Finally Rouge found the News Channel and set the remote down on the coffee table alongside the eggnogs.

A news reporter was standing in Station Square in front of a large pile of Eggman robots, or at least what _was _a pile of Eggman robots before they were completely destroyed.

"Here we have the acts of two brave heroes! Sonic the Hedgehog the worldwide hero! And Silver the Hedgehog lesser known do gooder!"

Dylan saw them and his curiosity rose. He stiffened a little and grabbed the remote turning up the volume a little.

"Unfortunately our brave heroes are being hospitalized after severe injuries," In the background Sonic and Silver were both being placed into ambulances and hastily being taken to the nearest hospital. Both of them looked pretty bad, but watching this, one thought couldn't escape Dylan's mind. There were the three hedgehog heroes; Sonic, Shadow and Silver. So where the heck is Shadow?

Dylan stood up and headed for the door as Rouge was startled by his sudden movement. She got up and stepped in front of Dylan stopping him before he could open the door.

"Wait!" she said quickly. "Where are you going? You just got here, you can't stay a little longer?" Rouge stood there and kept Dylan from leaving until he spoke out.

"Rouge, I would like to spend some more time with you and everyone else, but right now I have a job to do," he sternly walked past her as she turned around to face him.

"… I'm sorry," he said about to leave when Rouge stopped him.

"Hang on a sec, I've got something you're gonna need," she ran into the den of the apartment and grabbed the two Chaos Emeralds out of the glass sleigh and gave them to Dylan, who was waiting just outside her apartment door.

"If you're having a power issue, you'll need these," Rouge placed them in his hands and winked at him. He thanked her and walked down the hall to leave. Before Rouge closed the door she yelled down the hall;

"If you need any help, you know where to find me!" she smiled at him as he called the elevator which opened immediately. He smiled back and put his index and middle finger to his head, like a two fingered salute. He waved goodbye after and entered the elevator. As it went down to the first floor Dylan thought to himself;

"Well," He thought about Rouges sly look that she gave him earlier.

"She's definitely not part of the problem," He smiled and exited the elevator and went outside, returning to the chilly winter weather that was blowing all throughout Station Square. He knew this would be a long couple of days and he still had a ton of old friends to see.

"This is gonna be fun," he zipped up his black polyester jacket and began to run for Cream's house.

**To Be Continued…**


	3. Chapter 3: Friendly and Familiar Faces

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 3

Cream's house was abuzz with happiness and holiday cheer as members of the sonic team had gathered there for a Christmas party. Tails was standing next to the Christmas tree talking with cheese as he floated next to him. Cream was in the kitchen with her mother Vanilla helping to prepare desserts while her mother handled the food. Amy was the only one at the party not conversing, she was waiting at the front door to greet and smother our blue hedgehog hero.

Creams house was a small town house in the square of Station Square. Across the square was a red echidna standing on top of another town house, watching as if looking for someone.

"I don't like this, I don't like leaving the master emerald alone this long," Knuckles said to himself. He was shivering despite having a red and green scarf on, and being on top of a building covered in snow in the middle of a winter night didn't help either.

"Oh well, maybe I should just go back to angel island before I come down with something. No sign of that bat anyway," Knuckles turned to leave but stopped immediately when he saw a large figure towering above him. He stepped back to get into a fighting stance but slipped on the snow and fell down. The figure bent down to see knuckles face to face. Knuckles was slightly frightened until he recognized the face of the interloper.

"Dylan!" Knuckles smiled in relief and joy.

"Sup Knuckles?" Dylan said standing up straight again. He smiled at his friend and they pounded fists.

"Where've you been? I haven't seen you since…"

Dylan quickly interrupted him; "I know the master emerald incident. Rouge said the same thing to me." Knuckles eyes widened at the mention of the thieving bat. Knuckles jumped up to Dylan, grabbing the collar of his jacket and looking him dead in his brown eyes.

"Rouge! Where is she? Was she headed for the master emerald?! Well huh? Huh? ANSWER ME!" Knuckles was freaking out on Dylan until he stopped him. Dylan grabbed Knuckles and put him down on the ground while he was flailing his arms around saying; "WHERE? WHERE? WHERE?" Dylan finally answered.

"Relax pal, she was at her apartment. Why? Are you looking for her?" Dylan put on a sly smile and asked; "Worried about her?"

Knuckles face turned a bit red for a second as he turned away from Dylan.

"What are you nuts? I couldn't care less about that thieving bat!" Knuckles said trying to get himself under control.

"Really?" an unknown voice said. Dylan and Knuckles both looked around for a second searching for the source of the voice when Dylan looked up and saw a silhouette directly above him. He jumped backwards quickly and landed on both feet as the silhouette landed where he was standing. The figure faced Knuckles and said;

"Well that's a shame, I was actually a little worried about you Knucky,"

The figure was really Rouge… go figure. She looked the same as usual except with a red Christmas bow on her left ear with two small bells on it. Knuckles was still a little in awe from her sudden appearance and was just now recovering. He cleared his throat and said hello to her under his breath. There was a moment of silence until Dylan broke it.

"So Knuckles, were you waiting out here for Rouge?" At that, Knuckles face got even redder than before. Rouge was actually thinking the same thing, why was he waiting on a cold rooftop just across from the party? Rouge asked the same thing with her usual look of slyness.

"Yeah Knuckles… were you waiting for me?" she moved closer to him and was an inch away from his face before he looked up and saw how close she was. He freaked out and began to step backwards, only to discover there was no more rooftop there, and he fell clean off the building into a large pile of snow on the sidewalk. Rouge and Dylan both looked over the edge to see Knuckles head pop out of the snow. He looked up with a face as red as Rudolph's nose and shouted; "You're BATTY!"

Dylan and Rouge both snickered at the embarrassed Knuckles as he dug himself out of the snow, to the entertainment of the people walking by.

"Well I'll get Knuckles the snowman and get him a coffee or something on the way to the party. You go on ahead and do what you gotta do," Rouge smiled at Dylan and jumped off the edge of the building and floated to the ground next to Knuckles.

"C'mon you big oaf, lets warm you up," she said helping him out of the snow. He was silent as Rouge brought him a few stores down to a 'Starbucks' and hastily entered.

Dylan gave a short laugh, it was good to see the happy characters he had seen before were still as merry as usual, at least so far. He stopped chuckling and regained his serious mood. He jumped off the building and in an instant was across the square in front of Cream's house. As he knocked on the door he said; "Knock Knock it's party o clock," A little girl from the other side of the door said coming and opened it. Cream was standing in the doorway in a Christmas dress that was like her usual one, except the yellow and orange was replaced with a brown and white with a Rudolph face on the front. He knelt down and smiled at Cream saying;

"Merry Christmas Cream," Cream's face lit up with joy as she hugged Dylan saying;

"Oh yay! He's here! Cheese he's here!" her little voice carried through the house to her little chaos ears. Cheese perked up and looked around for a second until he realized where Cream was. He saw her just over Tail's shoulder in the doorway. He flew over to her and saw Dylan, making him even happier. Tails was startled by Cheese flying right past him and followed him to the door way where he saw Cream and Cheese. Dylan saw tails and lifted Cream up on his shoulders.

"Oh wow! Dylan's here," Vanilla came over from the kitchen and saw him and smiled.

"Well it's certainly been a while hasn't it young man?" Dylan smiled and nodded.

"Yes it has, Cream really has grown," Cheese puffed his cheeks in slight anger as he flew right in front of Dylan's face. Dylan quickly said;

"Oh and you too Cheese! So buff looking, have you been lifting?" he said smiling. Cheese drew back from Dylan, satisfied with the compliment and began to flex his imaginary muscles, to everyone's amusement. Cheese was punching and flexing until he lost balance mid flight and bonked right into Tail's head. They both hit the ground rubbed their heads, and then everybody laughed. Dylan hadn't felt the comfort of good friends and a warm fire in a long time, it was almost therapeutic for him.

"Well, please come in," Vanilla said closing the door and heading back into the kitchen.

"Gladly, thank you," Dylan said walking into the living room. He picked Cream up off his shoulders and put her down on the couch and sat down in a loveseat. Tails flew into the room and sat down next to Cream and Cheese.

"So, what're you doing back here Dylan?" Tails asked.

"Well Tails, I was actually sent here on a mission from my higher ups," he said contently taking in the atmosphere.

"Oh really, what for?" Tails' curiosity was brimming, he knew Dylan was involved with some big stuff, Universal stuff.

"Yeah, what're you back for?" Cream asked.

"Sorry, I can't disclose my mission information," he said sternly.

"Awwwww," Cream and Tails both said. Cream looked up at Dylan with big cute eyes. Those eyes and the 'awws' were too much for Dylan, if you didn't react to it you were stone cold.

"Alright alright I'll talk, just please stop it with the eyes," he said to Cream. She blinked a few times and she was back to normal. Tails and Cheese both leaned in closer to listen.

"My mission…" Dylan paused for suspense. Cream, Cheese and Tails were all on the edge of their seats.

"… Is to stop a time alteration involving Shadow the Hedgehog!"

Tails Cream and Cheese all oooohed and ahhhhhed at the mission and even applauded a little like it was the end of a performance. Dylan rolled with the applause saying "Thank you Thank you,"

"Oh, well if it involves Shadow, then you should go look up by the hospital, that's where he said he was going after he heard about the accident involving Sonic and Silver," Sonic and Silver…

"Wait a minute! That reminds me, where's Amy?" Dylan jumped out of his chair. They all looked around for her but she was nowhere to be found.

"I'll go check upstairs!" Cream said hopping off the couch and running towards the door, once she was out of the room she made a right and ran up the stairs, but she tripped on something lying on the first one. Dylan, Cheese and Tails heard the thud and ran over to see Cream getting up, but what drew their attention was what she tripped over. On the bottom stair Amy was lying down, sleeping. Dylan sighed.

"I guess waiting for Sonic has really worn her out," he said. He picked her up and started for the door, until Cream stopped him.

"Wait!" she stepped in front of him like Rouge had.

"You're going already?" she asked, her eyes were starting to get bigger.

Dylan knelt down and patted her on the head.

"Don't worry, as soon as my mission's done I'll come and hang out, but my mission is important and I need Sonic and Silver to do it," he smiled at Cream and then the rest of them.

"I'm pretty sure this one's gonna be excited to see Sonic," he said with Amy over his shoulder. He walked out of the door waving goodbye to everyone and saying "Merry Christmas!"

He knew if he ran with Amy in tow it would wake her and freak her out, so he needed a ride. He ran to the roadside and hailed a taxi. He put Amy in first and then got in the other side and they were off. The cabby in front was smoking a cigarette with the window open and asked;

"Where to Mac?"

"Station Square Cliffside Hospital please," Dylan responded. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around Amy, she looked so calm when she was sleeping. He looked out the window as they moved out of traffic and were on their way to the hospital. It had been a while since he was in a cab, too long.

"Well, I guess Sonics getting an early Christmas present," he thought looking at Amy.

"I guess Amy's getting one too," he smiled and thought looking out the window waiting to get to the hospital.


	4. Chapter 4: Memories of the Genesis

Shadow Saves them All

Chapter 4

I can distinctly remember the first time I met Sonic. Shortly after the first adventure he ever went on. After he collected the seven chaos emeralds and freed his numerous animal friends, he returned home to a life of fast running and solitude. If you truly wanna know, I helped him find his first real friend. According to the Sonic X story, Sonic met him on an island when he was fixing up Sonics plane. According to comic books there was a whole other story to tell. But when you come down to it, Sonic needed to take the initiative to find that friend. Guess who provided it?

Sonic was running home just after defeating Dr. Robotnik and was finally back in the green hill zone. He was headed for a cabin in the woods nearby and just as he was about to enter…

"Ahhhhhhhh!" I remember walking through a portal as a test for one of my first assignments, next thing I knew I was falling into a forest. I hit a couple of tree limbs and then finally I hit the ground. I ached all over and felt terrified from the large fall I had just taken. But the biggest thing was that I felt something underneath me. I got up… slowly and looked on the ground, only to see a blue hedgehog with white gloves and red shoes was lying on the ground, hurt bad.

I picked him up, which was very easy seeing as he was maybe 2 foot seven at the time, and I was about 5 feet tall. He was surprisingly light so I did what any rational person would've done in my situation, shook him until he came to.

"Wake up!" I shouted at the little guy over and over. His eyes started to flicker open and then they opened wide when he noticed something was holding him. He quickly jumped out of my hands and landed on the ground with a look that said; "If you come any closer, I'll attack you," I caught the signal and immediately settled myself down. I decided the polite thing to do was apologize for falling on him. Next I introduced myself.

"My name is Dylan, what's yours?" I said in a friendly tone.

'Not like he can answer. Although, he is standing upright like a normal human…'

It was at that moment when I heard something I could not believe…

"I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog," he said giving me a thumbs up. My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe this Hedgehog was talking to me.

"So, you're a human huh? I always imagined they would be bigger," he said scratching his chin with his fingers.

"This day cannot get any weirder. I've met a blue hedgehog who can walk and talk like a human… next thing you know he's got super powers or something," I thought.

"So, do you wanna come into my house for something to eat?"

… "Great, now he lives in a house," I nodded politely and I started for the log cabin when the hedgehog ran right into the place in a split second. He ran so fast he looked like a blue streak. He ran back out in no time with two glasses of lemonade. I picked one up and nervously drank it.

"Okay so he DOES have a super power. He also lives in a log cabin in the middle of the woods and apparently can make lemonade in the blink of an eye, well, that's about as weird as it gets, so I may as well make the best of it. I shouldn't feel threatened by him so long as I don't give him a reason to dislike me," I thought in a slight panic.

He invited me inside and I made my way to the log cabin. It was actually very nice. One story, one bed, a small table to eat at and a small fireplace with two little windows. Coupled with a few lanterns for light, the place looked very old fashioned, reminded me of home in a way. One thing that stood out though was his little kitchen in the corner, it had a refrigerator and a working boiler with a few pots and pans. Where did he get the electricity out here, and where did he get such high tech gear?

I kept my eyes on the appliances until Sonic followed my gaze. He ran over to them and leaned on the counter with the boiler on it.

"Like it? I got this and the big cold box from Dr. Robuttnik. He made some robots out of them and after I trashed them, I figured out how to use them," he said with a proud smile on his face.

"Cool," I said cautiously. Robuttnik? It had to be a nickname, Robotnik maybe? Oh yeah Robotnik, he's the guy who wanted the animals as a power source, and those emeralds too. So if this hedgehog beat him, then he must be a good guy. The light bulb finally lit up, I was worried about nothing. I was in the capable hands of a hero, so I could relax more.

I walked up to the boiler and examined it without touching it, I didn't wanna be rude.

"May I examine this?" I asked the hedgehog who was already relaxing on his bed.

"Sure thing," he said.

"Just don't break it,"

"No problem," I looked in the back of the device, there was no plug. I looked on the bottom and didn't see any battery slots or charging plug openings.

"Does this thing still work?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, whenever I need it to it always lights up," I had nothing else to go one. The only thing I could think of was this Dr. Robotnik was able to make a device with a self sustaining power source and place it in such a small machine. Interesting and at the same time… frightening.

I put the boiler down and sat down in the chair, it was so quiet and peaceful out in the woods, I liked it. Then I remembered the device on my belt, if I was sent to a world with no mission, then it would bring me back in twenty four hours. I checked it quickly to make sure it still worked, otherwise I was going to be there for a while. Luckily it wasn't damaged in the fall. That's when my stomach began to growl…loudly. I didn't have anything to eat before coming here and the fall took a lot out of me, so it wasn't surprising that I'd be hungry.

Sonic heard the growl and sat up on the bed.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I've got it," I remembered my emergency stash. I took off my backpack and placed it on the table. I zipped it open and felt inside for it… where is it… aha! Found it! I pulled out a Chili dog fresh in the wrapper, it was still warm from the insulated bag I had kept it in, and it wasn't even smushed from the fall! I unwrapped it and I was about to take a bite when I noticed Sonic was peering at my backpack from the edge of the table.

"What… is that?" he asked curiously. I looked over at the pack and realized. This guy doesn't know what a backpack is? Then I remembered he called the fridge a cold box and it snapped in my mind. This guy has probably never seen this stuff before from being out in the woods all his life.

"That's a backpack, it's got pockets and stuff so I can carry things with me wherever I go,"

Sonics eyes widened as he continued to gaze at it.

"Whoa…" he said. As he started to rummage through it, don't worry I didn't mind, I continued to unwrap the chili dog and I took a bite. The warm chili over the tender hot dog on the soft bun was overwhelming, for just a moment I felt like I was floating, not a care in the world. Sonic pulled his head out of my backpack and started to sniff the air, he followed the smell of something unusual and delicious back to my chili dog, and his mouth began to water as he asked;

"What is that?" his eyes were fixated on it as took another bite. I swallowed and said;

"This my friend is the ultimate achievement in foodstuffs. It's a combination of the classic hot dog and a side of chili, it's what makes life worth living… A Chili Dog!" I said raising it in the air letting sunlight from the window hit it for effect. I am awesome at showmanship. Sonics eyes were glowing and his mouth was watering more and more by the second. I knew what the next thing he was going to say was and I was way ahead of him. I reached into my backpack and grabbed another Chili dog out, I always carried another one in case I was really hungry or was eating with a friend. I unwrapped it and gave it to him, taking the wrapper away so he wouldn't eat it. He held the Chili dog gingerly in his hand as he looked up at me with big eyes that asked; "Can I please?"

"Yes," I said with a smile. He didn't even have to ask. He took a good bite out of it and chewed it slowly to savor the flavor and finally he swallowed. His face had a blank expression on until finally he reacted. He jumped up and turned into a blue ball in the air. He landed on the ground on his two feet and ran all around the room, on the walls and even on the ceiling. I could hear him cheering and saying; 'Yahoo, and yeah!'

He finally stopped across from me at the table saying; "Wooee! That tastes delicious! It's like nothing I've ever had out here in the green hill zone! This Chili dog is the best!" he ate the chili dog so fast that by the time he was done I had only taken another bite of mine. I finished mine up with a few more bites and wiped my mouth a napkin. I had introduced Sonic to a world of flavor and he had introduced me to a world of excitement and adventure.

Time passed, before I knew it nighttime had fallen, no doubt that by tomorrow afternoon I would be called back. Sonic lit up the lanterns and the fireplace and made sure to lock the door. He sat down on the chair by the fireplace and relaxed again. I took my back pack and set it down by the door and took off my jacket hanging it on a log jutting out of the ceiling near the door. I looked around the cabin again and I was amazed how quaint Sonics life was. All he needed was a chair and a bed to relax in on a nice quiet day, and plenty of space to run in. He had truly acquired a taste for the simple things in life. I had taught him the names of the boiler and the refrigerator and even showed him what he could do with them. Boiling water, making thing hotter and colder using them. Until now he used them to keep himself warm when it was cold out, and cool when it was hot out. Now he could make his food in some new ways. I was also sure to give him the recipe for Chili Dogs, he really liked them. I mean REALLY LIKED THEM.

I looked around for another chair to sit down on when I remembered there was only one. Like I thought before, one story, one bed, one chair, a lot of ones. That's when I thought of something interesting to ask Sonic.

"Sonic, do you have any friends?" He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head.

"Hmmm… nope not really," he said with indifference.

"Well, do you have anyone out here to talk to?"

"Nope,"

"So you just live out here by yourself?"

"Nope,"

No? He didn't have anyone to talk to, so how could he say he wasn't alone? He continued…

"Robotniks out here causing all sorts of trouble, so I'm not alone. And I've got my animal friends to talk to, not like they talk back or anything," I could feel a slight sadness in his voice, I didn't want to cause him any pain or anything, I was just wondering.

"Well, maybe you could make friend or two?" I suggested. He looked at me with a look of interest.

"Living alone must get kinda lonely sometimes, wouldn't it feel nice to hang out with someone or be able to talk to someone about your problems?"

"Hmmm, well I have thought of it, it's just that…" he stopped for a minute, he was definitely saddened by the answer he was making.

"Nobody is as fast as me. I'm always on the move running around fighting Badniks, I don't think anyone but me is that fast, that brave or that tough," he said, turning his gaze to the fireplace alive with flames. The crackling of the wood burning continued to fill the cabin.

"Well, you'll never know unless you try," I said. Sonic thought for a moment, then he shrugged it off. He hopped out of the chair and rested on his bed.

"Well I'm turning in for the night," he said turning over to sleep.

"Yeah me too," I said. I laid down on the floor and put a blanket over me. I was happy today, and I hoped tomorrow would be just as well, until I had to go back.

The following day I woke up and relaxed in the cabin for a few hours with Sonic just talking about his life in Green Hill Zone and how he was fighting Robotnik. I was also sure to make a couple more chili dogs using some of the ingredients around the cabin. It was an unusual breakfast for both of us. Around noon time my belt blinked saying;

"Warning five minutes until auto-teleportation," Sonic didn't know much about technology, but he knew what that meant. I quickly explained to him my situation and thanked him for letting me stay with him. I told him he was a good person and to keep fighting for the side of good, and that one day, I might even see him again. Five minutes later, I gave him a high five and then I was teleported away. Shortly after that he met up with Tails just as he did in the Sonic X story, just a little differently but that's a story for another time. I'm almost up the hill to the hospital and Amy's starting to wake up, better get ready to pay the cabby. I wonder if they take rings or cash?

**To Be Continued…**


	5. Chapter 5: Assembling the Emeralds

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 5

I got out of the cab with Amy on my shoulder. I paid out the cabby with cash and he drove off. I turned to look at the hospital, I could see how it got its name, it was near the edge of a large cliff. The edge looked loose, like if some large force pushed it, it would all crumble down… Ominous.

I walked into the place and it was filled with bright lights and lightly painted walls. I saw doctors and nurses running around doing who knows what. I felt Amy starting to struggle on my shoulder so I let her down. She was starting to realize she was awake so it took her a minute to get her bearings… and balance. She nearly fell over until I grabbed her and kept her from falling.

"Hmmm, what? Hey! Where am I?" she said looking around at her surroundings. She saw me and then her face grew suspicious. She glared at me which felt surprisingly uncomfortable. She leaned closer to me trying her best to figure something out.

"You look… familiar," she said.

"Did you bring me here?" she asked.

"Yup," I said.

"In case you forgot, I'm Dylan," I said with a smile and thumbs up, similar to Sonics. That rang a bell in Amy's head and she remembered me from the Sonic CD story. I was never really seen but I was there trying to slow down Metal Sonic whenever the real Sonic was having trouble.

"Oh Dylan! Now I remember you! You were so brave and strong to help fight Eggman all those times!" she said with her usual cheerful attitude. That's when she recognized the building she was in as a hospital.

She asked; "Why are we at the Station Square Hospital?"

"I brought you here because you wanted to see Sonic right?"

Her eyes lit up at the sound of the opportunity.

"Oh yes! Thank you thank you!" That's when her face became a little glum.

"But, if he's here at the hospital then…" she looked at the ground with a sad face. I hated seeing any of my friends sad, I wanted to make her feel better no matter what.

"Well, he was hurt pretty bad in a fight against Eggman robots," this only made things worse. She put her hands up to cover her mouth and I saw her starting to tear up.

She really did care about Sonic.

"But, I'm sure he's gonna be just fine!" I said with confidence. She looked up suddenly surprised.

"He's Sonic the Hedgehog! He's the blue streak! The fastest thing alive! He'll bounce back from this in no time! I guarantee it!" Amy's eyes were rekindled with hope. I was glad I could make her happy again. I smiled proudly, beaming with confidence with Amy watching awe. That's when I noticed people walking by were starting to stare. I quickly returned to normal posture and calmed down.

"So, we should probably see where he's being treated," I said awkwardly. We walked up to the service desk and asked about the room he was being kept in.

"Oh," the service woman said. "Yeah he's being kept with Silver in Room 511 on the top floor," I was relieved Silver was okay too. I don't care what anyone says, Silver is awesome, I mean, he can use psychokenesis! How many hedgehogs do you know that can do that? Then again how many do you know that can run past the speed of sound? Or that could survive a fall to earth from space? But I'm babbling now.

We entered an elevator and Amy pressed the button for the fifth floor. We stopped on the third floor and a woman pushing a baby in a stroller entered and stood next to us. The elevator continued to go up while the baby giggled. It threw it's rattle on the ground and started to drool.

"Oh!" Amy said picking it up and giving it back to the baby.

"Here you go," she said smiling at the baby. The baby started to smile back at her when the elevator beeped and the number five was displayed on the floor screen. The doors opened and we all walked out. The woman continued in the same direction as me and Amy for a little bit until we turned left while they continued down the hallway.

"Cute baby," I said as we walked.

"Yeah, I hope my babies are that cute," she said beginning to fantasize.

"For Sonics sake I hope she's right," I muttered.

I kept looking at the room numbers. 515, 513, aha! 511! I opened the door and walked inside with Amy, Sonic and Silver both looked over and spotted us. They were both still very cheerful despite their current situation. They were both in hospital beds and Sonic had some bandages on his head and arms. Silver had a cast on his left arm and some bandages on his left leg. They both didn't seem to be in any condition to fight or even move. Silver was in the bed on the far left, closest to the window, and Sonic was to the left of his. Across from Sonics bed was a T.V. and there was a small table in between the two beds. Just a quick layout of the room. What really drew my attention was the third person in the room.

I looked at the end of Sonics bed and saw Shadow sitting down on it facing Sonic and Shadow. He had a pair of sunglasses on his head and a red scarf around his neck. Sunglasses at night… huh… odd.

"Dylan!" Silver said, brightening the mood.

"Dylan!" Sonic said.

"Dylan?" Shadow said to me, wondering what I was doing there.

"Sonic!" Amy said running up to his bed and hugging him, making Sonic blush a bright red.

"Amy!?" Sonic shouted.

"Amy?" Silver said looking over to Sonics bed.

"Amy," Shadow said closing his eyes in indifference.

Amy started to really constrict Sonics breathing from the hugging, as shown through his bright blue face.

"Amy!" I said rushing up to her and pulling her away.

"Dylan!" Amy said looking back at me with rage in her eyes.

Hell Hath No Fury Like An Amy Scorned. That's what flashed through my head at the sight of her in that state. I let her go but she stopped before hugging Sonic again when she saw him starting to breath heavily and cough.

"Sorry," she said shyly. Sonic saw she was getting sad and thought quickly. He put his arm up in an attempt to do his signature thumbs up wink look, but instead just coughed some more.

"No problem," he said after a coughing fit. He smiled a little awkwardly at her and she smiled back. That hedgehog always knows how to make her happy…

"So, what are you doing back here?" Silver asked. The last time I saw him was during the Sonic Next Gen story. When he had started to fight Iblis with Blaze I was there, mainly helping to get people to safety when Iblis first arose. I met with Silver for a little while and then when he went forward in time to attack Sonic I was watching him, making sure he didn't actually kill Sonic.

"Same thing as always Silver, power issues," I said scratching my head.

"Humph," Shadow said as he hopped off the bed. He approached me slowly with his eyes shut and then stopped in front of me opening them saying;

"Well I hope you do a better job than you did in my story," (Shadow the Hedgehog, the Game,) I sighed, I couldn't do anything in that story. That was a problem that only Shadow could deal with, if I interfered then he wouldn't have learned to try and put the past behind him. Nothing would've changed.

"Shadow, I'm actually very glad you're here, Sonic and Silver too,"

"Hey! What about me?" Amy said. I looked down and saw how determined she was to be of use.

"Yup, you too Ames," I said patting her head. She closed her eyes and nodded in approval.

"Good," she said smiling. I returned to my serious manner. I pulled out the two Chaos emeralds from my pockets and laid them on Sonics bed. Everyone but Shadow looked at them in awe.

"I'm looking for the seven Chaos Emeralds. There's a serious timeline interference that's going to occur, and I need them to stop it. Shadow, it mainly involves you," I pointed to him.

"Me?" he said with little interest.

"I know for certain that during this time of year, you isolate yourself from everyone else and remain very quiet. That has to be part of the timeline interference," he turned to me with a look of irritation.

"Are you saying that I can't be left alone?"

"No," I said quickly trying to avoid a brawl.

"I'm saying that you are not going to be there when someone or something needs you, and what happens to that someone or something is going to vastly alter the timeline!" I said concluding my mission statement.

"Now, using that information, what do you think is going to happen?" I asked Shadow. A moment passed and he didn't answer.

"Anyone?" I asked more desperately. No response as everything was thinking.

"If that's the case," Shadow said breaking the silence.

"Then your problem has already occurred," he said looking right at me.

"What?" we all said in unison.

"Sonic and Silver were both injured severely by Eggman robots, If I were there to help them then they wouldn't have been hurt as badly…"

"But because you weren't we got hospitalized!" Sonic said putting the pieces together.

"So I bet that means something's going to happen to us while we're here in the hospital that'll alter the timeline in the future!" Silver said.

With the pieces put together my mission was now clear. I pulled my jacket away from my waist and grabbed my belt buckle. It was a computerized one with hardware visible through safety glass.

"Update mission status," I said pressing a button on it. A hologram was projected into the middle of the room. A woman with shoulder length blonde hair was displayed wearing a dark uniform. Everyone in the room looked at her with amazement.

"Dylan, what's the current status of your mission?" she asked.

"Alice," I said. "Mission has become clear. New target, the Seven Chaos emeralds for healing Sonic and Silver," Alice nodded and said; "Confirmed," The hologram turned to static and then deactivated. I let go of my belt buckle and sighed. Everyone's eyes, even Shadows were turned to me. I smiled and said;

"Okay, if any of you know where I can find any Chaos emeralds now's the time to start squawking," I said. Shadow looked me dead in the eye and asked;

"And just what do you plan to do with the Chaos emeralds?"

"Didn't you hear me a second ago? I'm gonna heal Sonic and Silver," I said looking at him with the same look he was giving me.

"In that case," I heard Sonic say as he opened a drawer in the table next to his bed.

"You're gonna need these," Sonic said holding out the blue and silver chaos emeralds. I looked at them in awe, it was never this easy to obtain them before.

"Where did…" I began to ask still gazing at them.

"Isn't it obvious?" Amy said interrupting me. She hugged Sonic again and smiled.

"He's Sonic the Hedgehog, he can do anything!" Amy's unwavering faith in Sonic was unmatched.

"Actually the blue one's mine, the clear one belongs to Silver," he said brushing off Amy's comment, ruining her mood. He tossed the two to me and I tossed em both in my pocket. That makes four, too easy. Suddenly something was shoved right in front of my face, it was glowing purple. I took a step back and realized it was the purple Chaos Emerald, Shadow was holding it up to me.

"Just take it, before I change my mind," he said avoiding eye contact with me.

"My," I said taking it and putting it in my pocket.

"How unusually generous of you Shadow the Hedgehog," I said amusingly. Sonic and Silver both giggled a little but stopped when Shadow glared at them.

"Bear in mind I'm the only healthy hedgehog in this room," he said threateningly to everyone except for Amy.

"Alright alright," I said putting my hands up to calm him down.

"Shadow I need your help to find the remaining two Chaos emeralds. We should each search for one. If doctor Eggman doesn't know I'm here then he won't go looking for them with me,"

"I'm also the only Hedgehog not on painkillers, so the Doctor will probably be looking for me too," That was a good point, if Eggman cornered Shadow he would be dead, and we would be short a chaos emerald.

"So…" Silver said. "Why don't you guys come up with a place where Shadow can drop off..."

"QUIET SILVER PEOPLE ARE TALKING!" Shadow shouted in anger. Silver cringed and hid under his covers.

"SHADOW!" Amy shouted back at Shadow. "BE NICE!"

"Watch it Amy!" Shadow's fury began to boil over. "Just because you're a girl doesn't mean I wouldn't…"

"Hang on Shadow! Silver might be on to something," Sonic said defending his friends and lowering the tension.

Shadow crossed his arms and closed his eyes; "Humph, fine. Continue Silver," he shot a dangerous glare at Silver as he was coming out from under the covers which made him cringe again.

"O-okay." He said nervously. "Well if Shadow dropped of a Chaos emerald somewhere where Eggman couldn't find it, then Dylan could retrieve it later," I thought about it for a moment. It was a really good idea aside from the fact that I had no idea where to hide an emerald from that mad Doctor.

"I have no idea where to hide it where he wouldn't find it though," I mentioned.

"I do," Amy said. We all looked to her with surprise.

"Why don't you just give it to someone in Eggman's base, someone who he trusts, but someone whose on our side…"

"Hiding the emerald right under Eggmans big fat hairy nose huh? Sounds like the perfect plan!" Sonic said with his usual confidence back.

"And I think I know just the person we need," everyone knew exactly who I meant.

"Maria Robotnik the Hedgehog!" everyone in the room said at once.

"That's a crazy idea!" Shadow said interjecting.

"I don't wanna put Maria into the middle of this! Who knows what Eggman would do to her if he found out!" he said worriedly. Shadow never really worried about anyone, and if he did he didn't ever _**show**_ it. I put my hand on Shadow's shoulder, he looked up at me with anxiety in his eyes.

"… Trust me Shadow, it'll be okay," I said. I was as serious as I possibly could be.

"…"

"Well Shadow?" I asked him. Everyone in the room was waiting for his answer.

"…"

"Please Shadow…"

"…" he finally spoke.

"Fine," I sighed in relief, the plan was set and I was ready to go.

"But you'd better get to her as soon as I let you know I left it with her!" he said to me warningly. I smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up.

"It's a promise,"


	6. Chapter 6: Eggman Lays a Plan

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 6

Dr. Eggman, the single most crazy man in the entire world. Countless times he has tried to take over the world and create the Eggman empire, and every time Sonic has been there to take him down a couple of notches. This time, he has something really nasty up his sleeve, wonder what it is?

"Ohhhh! Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho! Bokkun! This is without a doubt, my best plan ever!" Eggman said laughing crazily. Bokkun flew over to the Doctor with his same stupid smile and laughed along with him.

"Yeah! Way to go Dr. Eggman! Your plan is great!" he said clapping his hands.

Eggman looked at him with an annoyed face.

"I haven't even told you what it is yet you idiot!" he yelled at Bokkun. Bokkun was blown backwards and landed in a bunch of crates. He dug himself out with a box still stuck on his head. He looked at the wall behind him and said;

"Ohhhh! But I know any plan you have is going to be amazing Dr. Eggman!" he said waving his arms in excitement. Eggman looked over at Bokkun and pounded his fist on the control board in front of him.

"I'm over HERE Bokkun!" he yelled again. Bokkun jumped in fright and hid back underneath the crates.

"Stupid robot," he thought to himself. "My latest plan will be the best ever, and with Sonic out of Commission, I will be able to execute it without any problems!" He thought of the cocky look on Sonics face, it made him want to smash him down once and for all!

I decided I was going to head for his base, if Egghead had any emeralds, it was best to get them away from him immediately. I mean, we all know what happens when the bad guy has great power: T,R,O,U,B,L,E. I ran for his base far out in the plains. The moonlight shined on the grass as I ran, I knew he had to be somewhere around here. I checked my belt for the time, it said 1:36 A.M.

"Goodie, Christmas Eve morning and I'm already looking for trouble,"

I spotted a light out in the distance and boosted my speed even more to get closer faster. I stopped once I had a better view of the light, it was Eggman's base. It was a large building that looked like a small skyscraper with small courthouse buildings around it. All surrounded by a large steel wall. Each courthouse building was labeled; "EGG ROBOT FACTORY"

"He's preparing for something… but what?" I had a plan. Get in, learn his plan, get the emerald(S), and get out in one piece. I ran and jumped the wall easily, I ran straight through the courtyard and didn't trigger any alarms or run into any searchlights. I made it to the side of the skyscraper building and jumped as high as I could reaching the twentieth floor. I grabbed the ledge and hoisted myself up. I jumped up again and this time I made it all the way to the roof.

I landed perfectly and ran through the door on the rooftop. I went down the stairs and opened another door which opened into a hallway. I looked to my left and saw big double doors with an Eggman symbol on it. To my right was a dead end and on my left there was also a hallway on the right side.

"That's gotta be Eggman's Headquarters," I said to myself. I was about to run straight into the doors when I heard Eggmans voice. I saw his shadow walking around the corner with a small robot floating in the air next to him. Bokkun. I thought fast and pulled two daggers out of my backpack. I jumped up to the ceiling and dug my daggers into it. I had daggers placed just under the soles of my shoes just in case something like this ever happened. Best. Twenty Bucks. Ever.

"So Bokkun, now I will tell you about my latest plan!" he said manically as he turned the corner headed for the double doors, he didn't appear to have noticed me.

"Ohhhh yay! I can't wait to hear it Dr. Eggman!" Bokkun said happily.

"Suck up," I thought to myself. They walked through the doors and I couldn't hear them talking anymore. I jumped down from my hiding spot and sheathed my knives. I couldn't go through the doors, too risky. There has to be another way in. I looked at the wall just to the left of the doors. High up on the wall was an air vent. Bingo.

I jumped up to it and pried it open. I crawled inside and started to move through the vent system, I went left, then right, then right again and then after a while another right. I stopped when I came to the vent cover. I looked down and saw Eggman and Bokkun. Bokkun was stuck in a pile of crates for some reason and was talking to a wall with one on his head. Weird even for him. I pulled off the cover and slid down the wall to the top of a support beam. I landed on it and nearly fell off, I had slipped on a loose sheet of metal which fell to the ground. If I wasn't so high up I wouldn't have had enough time to climb down on the backside to hide from Eggman.

"Hmm?" Eggman looked over to see the sheet had fallen to the ground. He looked up by the beam and put on a suspicious look.

"Damn birds!" he yelled. "They ruined the mood!" Bokkun walked over from the crate pile and pulled his head out of the box.

"Dr. Eggman? Your plan?" he asked.

"Ohhhh! Right! Thank you Bokkun!" Bokkun smiled widely. I was relieved. I got back up on the top of the beam and listened carefully to what they were saying. Eavesdropping time.

"Now then, as you know Santa Clause is the source of all the happiness and joy this time of year," he pressed a button on the control board and an image of Santa popped up on the large television in the room. It showed a mall Santa with a child on his lap. He switched it to a picture of a Santa ringing a bell for charity.

"And because he has no idea what he's doing, I never got any presents!" he said angrily gritting his teeth.

"Yeah!" Bokkun said jumping in the air, egging him on. (Get it?)

"He's crazy, I mean you always hate all the right things right? Like Sonic, and rainbows, and fun, and…"

"Alright! Enough Bokkun," Eggman said shutting him up using a mute button. Bokkun didn't seem to notice and continued to speak, though he made no sound. Of all his inventions, I'd say that one was the most useful. Now if he could only make one for himself…

"So! This year I'm going to destroy Santa Clause and his workshop! Devastating children around the world!"

"Yay!" Bokkun cheered, making no sound.

"Now, past efforts have shown me that Santa has a special force field around his Factory that allows people on the good list to enter. But…" he said walking over to a table with something on it. It was something covered in a white blanket. Eggman pulled it off and revealed a helmet that had the Eggman symbol on it.

"With this I can't fail!" he pressed the un-mute button on his remote control and Bokkun's cheering could once again be heard.

"Yayyyy!" Bokkun stopped suddenly and looked at the device for a moment and then asked;

"What is it?" Eggman fell down anime style and continued, irritated.

"This is my latest invention! It has the ability to mind control whoever wears it! I'm going to use this on Shadow!" This grabbed my attention, why would he use it on Shadow? He wasn't as fast as Sonic, he couldn't use psychokenesis like Silver and only god knows if he made the nice list. I certainly don't know. Then it hit me, he's the only one who's healthy enough to do it! And he's always by himself so if he was outnumbered it would be no problem to brainwash him! That's why he attacked Sonic and Silver, so no one could stop him! Everything fell into place, and I had to stop him.

"Ooohhh! How does it work Dr. Eggman?" Bokkun asked enthusiastically looking at the helmet.

"It's powered by a chaos emerald, thankfully we were able to find one and secure it in the base. Within the hour I will place it into this helmet and Shadow the Hedgehog will be ours!" he said.

"Ohhhh Ho Ho ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho!" he began to do his normal insane laugh, I couldn't believe it, but this plan was actually good! I had to get the emerald from the base and escape immediately. I ran back through the vent as quickly as I could and made it back out to the hallway. I took the left into the hallway Eggman and Bokkun came from and ran as fast as I could. I took a large flight of stairs down about Ten floors until I saw a door labeled; 'Containment Facility,' That had to be where he was holding it.

I ran inside and saw the room was huge! The ceiling was high up and shaped like a dome, and when I moved to the center of the room I saw above the entrance door was a balcony and another door labeled; Employees Only. As if. In the center of the room there was a small column with something on top of it, it was small and covered in a white blanket. The Chaos Emerald. I pulled off the blanket and saw it, it was a glowing Chaos Emerald just like I thought, but something was wrong, it was Blue.

I looked into my pocket and checked to be sure, there it was, the blue emerald. I had the real one Sonic gave me, so that means this one is a fake. A fake? Why would Eggman put a fake emerald in his own base unless… IT'S A TRAP! I heard a machine whirring and got ready to run, but it was too late. A large glass jar slammed down on the ground around me and the column, capturing me. The bottom of the jar clamped down into the ground preventing me from escaping. That's when Eggman walked through the door up by the balcony and walked down it laughing some more.

"Ohhhh! Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho! Welcome to the Egg-Base Interloper!" he said triumphantly. I was annoyed at myself for falling into such a simple trap, how stupid could I have been?

"You know, putting the word EGG in front of everything doesn't make it more evil! It just wastes time!" I shouted at him through the glass.

"I don't care, and I really don't think you're in any position to be insulting me when you're my prisoner. Now you won't be going anywhere!" he shouted.

"And just to make sure you don't use that fake emerald to break out…" he pressed a button on the control board on the balcony and the blue emerald exploded, the small bits and pieces flew around in the container and made a small cloud of blue dust.

"Well there goes the fake emerald," I thought to myself with my back turned to the Doctor. That's when I had an idea. I reached into my pockets and grabbed two emeralds firmly and turned to Eggman quickly. I pulled my hands out of my pockets emeralds in hand and shouted;

"Chaos! Contr-oooaaahh!" I felt something pulling me upwards and before I knew it, I was stuck to the black ceiling of the container! What was worse I dropped the red and green chaos emeralds out of my hands when I was pulled up here!

"What? What is this?" I asked in desperation.

"That is an electromagnet! It homed in on your wrist devices, belt and shoes and pulled you up to it!" the jar container unclenched from the ground and Eggman came down from the balcony. The container rose and Eggman walked under it and picked up the two Chaos emeralds. He looked at them with a cocky smile on his face.

"I learn from my mistakes you know. As soon as I heard that metal falling from the ceiling back there I knew you were here!" he said looking up at me.

"How did you know I'd be coming!?" I asked.

"Whenever my plans are on the verge of fruition, you always manage to eavesdrop on me and then go tell one me to Sonic! Well not this time! I had a little robot of mine do some undercover work! Does this ring a bell?" he pulled out a baby's rattle and shook it around a bit. A baby's rattle? Where did I… WAIT! In the hospital, in the elevator with Amy! There was a woman and her baby! Then… that means…

My train of thought was interrupted by Bokkun rushing into the room in a baby's outfit, he looked exactly like the child in the carriage except for the face. He pressed a button on his pajamas and a holographic baby face appeared disguising his own. Eggman had been spying on us in the hospital and heard our plan, he was one step ahead of me! Eggman saw my face and knew I had figured it out.

"I thought I'd give you a taste of your own medicine. How does it feel having your plans ruined? Having so much hard work destroyed? All because some irritating hedgehog stuck his nose where it didn't belong and stopped the rise of the glorious EGGMAN **EMPIRE!?"**

Eggman was shouting by the end of the last sentence, his rage was put into every last word of what he said. I had to admit, it felt pretty terrible, so much hard work destroyed… But I wasn't about to join Eggman because of a small sympathy trip. Eggman breathed heavily for a minute and then returned to his normal crazy mood.

"Now then, that magnet is detecting several other chaos emeralds on you. It's also programmed to vaporize anything with a chaos emerald kind of power on it, so if you value your life, you'll give me the remaining emeralds," he said with a crooked grin.

"How did you know I had more emeralds on me?" I asked suspiciously.

He smiled again. "Because you just told me!" he said laughing some more.

"DAMMIT!" I thought to myself. He did to me what he did to Tails in the Sonic Adventure 2 story. I lowered my head in shame and defeat, he had actually outwitted me, I had lost. I pulled my wrist off the magnet just long enough to push my right jacket pocket inside out, letting the last three emeralds fall out. Eggman picked up all three from the ground and held the five emeralds in his hands. He stared at them, admiring their raw power, their beauty, he stared at them because his wit had won them for him.

He walked out from under the container and got back onto the balcony and pressed some more buttons. First the container lowered back down and clamped into the floor, then the magnet deactivated. I fell to the ground and it hurt, but it didn't hurt as much as being beaten by Eggman. He turned away from me on the balcony and began to walk to the door he entered from.

"By the way, the magnet is set to magnetize to you and vaporize you immediately should that safety glass container be broken," he said waving his hand as he walked out of the room with Bokkun following behind him. He opened the door and shouted; "HAVE FUN!" and then slammed it shut. I sat there in the room, alone. I lost… to Eggman.

No…


	7. Chapter 7: The Lengths of Evil

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 7

**WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER HAS SOME VERY INTENSE SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE. IF YOU ARE YOUNG OR HAVE A QUEASY STOMACH ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING, THEN READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. I WILL SUMMARIZE THIS CHAPTER IN THE NEXT ONE FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT READ THIS ONE. REMEMBER, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED… SO DON'T BLAME ME IF YOU GET NIGHTMARES!**

**Hot tip. For maximum effect, read while listening to "Morphogenetic Sorrow," I'll say **(Now) **when I want you to.**

Shadow ran through Station square with robots following him, hot on his heels.

"Dylan! Come in Dylan!" he kept shouting into the communicator in his inhibitor ring. He got no response aside from static and a few words…

"Eggman… Helmet…" He shook off the static and continued to jet through the streets. The robots flew after him and fired rockets and bullets hoping to turn him into a pin cushion. He had managed to grab the teal chaos emerald from a hill just outside of Station Square, and some Eggman robots happened to see him.

A hail of bullets followed Shadow and skimmed off his fur as the robots continued to fire at a faster pace. One managed to bounce off the pavement and ricochet pounding into Shadows head. Luckily it bounced off his head from being thrown off by the ricochet. This was the boiling point for Shadow. He stopped dead in his tracks and the robots surprisingly did the same. Shadow's face was hidden from the robots as he put his hand to his head. He had been bruised and slightly cut, he let the blood roll onto his gloves and then clenched his fist.

He grabbed the teal Chaos emerald from his hiding place and turned around with fury in his eyes. He held the emerald in front of him and shouted; "CHAOS **BLAST!"**

The power of his Chaos blast was so immense it blew away all the robots in no time, the wave passed right over them and eradicated them. Shadow put the emerald away and relaxed;

"Now that they're gone, I can try to communicate with him," Shadow tried once again to communicate with Dylan, only this time it worked perfectly. Those robots must've been jamming the signal.

…

I finally got the damn device to work and I got through to Dylan. For some reason I heard heavy breathing on the other end, it took me a second to realize it was Dylan, he was beginning to sob. Then I heard a fist pound on something. "DAMMIT!" I heard loudly.

"Dylan!" I said into the device. His voice stopped and he responded with an unsure answer.

"Sh-Shadow?" he asked.

"I finally got through to you, where are you?" I said. His fist pounded into something again and he shouted angrily.

"I'M IN Dr. Eggman's freaking base! He captured me because I was an idiot!" he was taking it really hard, as he should've. Idiots like Silver and Sonic don't win fights, they lose.

"Calm down, I'll figure out a way to get you out of there," I said. I didn't know for sure if I could though, I never make any promises I can't keep.

Well first I'd better get out of here, people are starting to notice me. I boosted out of there and didn't stop until I was safely out of city limits. I checked my watch; 2:22 A.M. still pretty early. I needed one more emerald before I could go after him though. I was sure there was someone else who had one. Rouge had two. I had one, Sonic and Silver both had one, that's five which are all with Dylan. Then there was the teal one which I found, what about the last one…

"Team Chaotix!" they had found the yellow one during an investigation recently. I can only hope those idiots didn't lose it or sell it. I began to run back into the city to the party Cream was throwing, Vector would probably be there with Charmy and Espio. Especially since he like Creams mother.

I made it to their front door in no time at all. I knocked and waited for someone to answer, no response. I had no time to spare, I kicked down the door and ran inside of Creams house… there was decimation everywhere.

(Now,)

The furniture was destroyed and the walls looked damaged. I walked into the den and saw the couch torn up with pillows torn to shreds on top of it. I noticed there was something underneath it, it looked yellow and white. I moved the pillows and saw it was Tails, he had been beaten and bruised. I picked him up and shook him saying; "What happened here? Answer me!" Tails opened his eyes slowly, he was cringing in pain.

"Eggman… Robots… check on… Cream…" Tails faded out. I had no time to spare. I ran to the kitchen and was horrified at what I saw. Vanilla's stomach had been sliced open and an eviscerated Vector laid on top of her. I nearly vomited at the sight. It seemed that they had been attacked so quickly they had no time to react. I looked on the kitchen wall to my left and I saw a large blood splatter on the wall. It dripped down to the ground and there I saw something horrifying. Charmy laid there, his small body squished… he looked absolutely repulsive. I walked over to Vanilla and checked her for the emerald… nothing. The same for Charmy, no dice. I just couldn't go near Vector, his injuries were too much to bear. That's when a drop of blood landed on my hand, I was almost frightened to look up, I immediately regretted doing so.

Espio had been nailed into the ceiling using a nail gun of sorts. His organs were hanging out of the open wounds as the smell of fresh death filled my nose…I nearly vomited. I ran out of the room and headed to the stairs, I ran up them to the equally destroyed hallway. All the doors were intact except for one, Cream's door.

I walked inside careful not step on any sharp pieces of wood and was horrified by what I saw. Cream laid there… dead. She was sitting there in her own little rocking chair with Cheese's bottle in her arms like she was feeding him just when something terrible happened. She had been impaled through her tiny body with a sharp blade. I looked around the room for Cheese and found him impaled into the floor next to the door. His poor body mashed down by the shrapnel, the only thing not covered in blood was his pain filled face.

They were all killed… I couldn't help but feel sorry for them… or even… be saddened by their deaths. What had happened?

"What happened here!?" I shouted clenching my chaos emerald in my hand. That's when the strangest thing happened. The emerald's energy shot out of it and flowed around the room. It flowed out of the doorway and down the stairs, I followed it. I saw it flow through the kitchen, living room, and dining room, as it did it brought color and life back to the building.

The building had been restored to normal and the bodies were gone. What happened? Could a single Chaos emerald do all this? No. That's not possible. All seven maybe but… one? I stood in front of the door when I heard it knocking. I turned around and was about to grab it when something stopped me, I don't know if it was a voice or feeling but something told me not to open it. I saw Vanilla come walking out of the kitchen and walked right into me, except… I didn't feel it. Was she a mirage? Or was I finally going insane? She opened the door and Vector stood outside with Charmy and Espio. They all put on smiles and said;

"Merry Christmas!" Vanilla smiled and said; "Welcome everyone, please come in!"

"Well thank you Vanilla!" Vector said loudly as he walked in. Espio walked in after him with Charmy flying in right behind him. Espio nudged Charmy and nodded his head. Charmy smiled and said; "Ohhhh! Right!" Charmy pulled out a box and gave it to Vanilla.

"Oh! Why thank you little man," she said smiling down at the little bee. Charmy blushed and said; "Awww… it was nothing," He flew into the living room with Espio as they sat down on the couch. Tails was sitting there talking with Cream and Cheese and they joined in. Vector sat down on the couch and Charmy sat next to him while Espio sat down next to Vector on the other side of the couch. They talked for a little until Vanilla said from the kitchen; "I've prepared a little late night snack for you all," Vector took this opportunity and jumped out of his seat and shouted to Vanilla;

"Oh! I'll come and help you Vanilla!" he rushed out of the room and ran straight into the kitchen to see Vanilla was cutting out cookies into Christmas shapes.

"Oh Vector, you really don't have to," she said smiling warmly at him, she didn't want to trouble him. Vector smiled closing his eyes. He could feel himself blushing as he talked;

"Nonsense! I don't mind! It's my duty to help anyone who needs me! And whenever you need me just gimme a call!" he said scratching his head. Vanilla smiled back at him; "Well thank you Vector, if you could preheat the oven please and set the timer, that'd be great,"

Vector stood firm like a soldier and saluted her saying; "Aye aye ma'am!" he got right to work on the oven. He unraveled something he was hiding, and put it in his hand, he turned around and was about to talk to Miss Vanilla, and that's when Cream came in with Cheese as they both rubbed their eyes. Vanilla looked at the clock and saw it was easily Ten after one o clock in the morning.

"Cream darling, I think it's time for you to get to bed," she said to her daughter. Cream rubbed her eyes some more and said yawning; "But I'm not tired," Cheese followed up with a "Chao Chao" Vanilla knelt down to her daughter and said;

"Now run along upstairs and get into your jammies. Be sure to feed Cheese and I'll be up soon to read you a bedtime story," she said with her motherly smile. Cream smiled as her eyes began to droop and said;

"Okay mommy," she turned around and walked up the stairs with Cheese. Espio and Charmy walked in after her and walked up to Vanilla. Espio asked;

"Is there anything we could do to help?" Vanilla thought for a moment.

"Well if you'd like you could set the table for us," she said off the top of her head.

"We're on it!" Charmy said happily, flying into the dining room with Espio following after him. That's when things went wrong. Tails was waiting in the living room when he noticed something outside, it looked weird. He walked over to the door and opened it. Before he could do anything else though, a large robotic dog had snapped it's jaws around Tail's tiny body and was flailing him around. It slammed Tails into the wall and ran into the living room jumping onto the couch. It dropped Tails out of its mouth and began to pulverize him with attacks.

Vector heard the disturbance and ran to the door, he looked over at Tails and was freaked out. He was about to run over and fight the dog when a robot flew at him from the doorway. He jumped back to dodge it and ran into the kitchen.

"Miss Vanilla! We need to go now!" he shouted to her. But she had her own problems to deal with. A robot had broken through the kitchen window and a blade unsheathed and ready to kill. It slashed at Vanilla and Vector shouted; "NOOOO!" he jumped in front of the slice and was cut open. He landed on Miss Vanilla and was unconscious. The robot decided to puree' Vector into a green jelly by slicing at him over and over, while Vanilla could only watch. He had been cut and sliced until there were open wounds everywhere on him and Vanilla. The robot had actually cut through Vector and killed Vanilla.

Espio and Charmy looked at the robot from the dining room and Charmy was traumatized. He stayed there flying in the same spot just staring at the bodies. Espio jumped into action and lunged at the robot, but another one grabbed his left arm and pressed him up against the wall. He struggled but could do nothing as the robot interchanged it's hand for a nail gun and proceeded to nail him into the ceiling once and for all. It started with his hands and feet, then moved on to the rest of his body. It kept nailing until it ran out of nails. The robots looked at Charmy who was now far beyond anyone's mental reach. The robot merely swatted him away like a regular insect. It had hit him so hard however, that it had made him squish against the wall, and slowly dragged down it to the floor.

The robots re-converged at the front door and went up the stairs. They checked all the rooms except for one, Cream's. This was going to be too gruesome to watch. They busted open the door and one robot put a laser sight on and aimed it at Cream's torso. Cream was quietly feeding Cheese his bottle when they busted in so she only just noticed them. She looked at them with fright and said with a quivering lip; "Who are you?" The robot fired a blade on a chain at the poor little girl and it impaled her, killing her on contact. Cheese was mortified and flew up away from her. He flew low by the robots legs so they couldn't catch him, he was almost out the doorway when the dog robot turned it's paw into a sharp piece of shrapnel and impaled him into the ground.

The three robots scanned the room after that and then left. They blasted through the wall in her room and departed. All was silent. The chaos emeralds power receded back into it and the house was once again grey and dead.

"I understand now. That was a vision of what happened here," I said. I felt the tears welling up as I walked down to the kitchen to check on Vanilla and see if she was still alive… nothing. I was about to check on Tails when I noticed Vector's hand was wrapped around something. I opened it and I was amazed at what I saw, the yellow Chaos Emerald! That's when I realized what happened, Vector was going to give Vanilla the emerald, and before he could, those robots showed up and did… this.

I walked over to Tails to see him barley conscious. I picked him up and shook him some as my tears began to be too much. I shouted at him;

"Wake up! You can't be gone too! You can't! Wake up!" no response.

"**WAKE UP!" ** Shadow shouted as he gave way to his tears. He collapsed on the ground and sobbed. So many innocent lives were lost. He didn't care if they were stupid or not, they were innocent! INNOCENT. **INNOCENT!**

Shadows tears stopped. He clenched his fist in rage and shouted to the world.

"**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"**


	8. Chapter 8: The Ultimate Relief

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 8

I launched myself upwards as I opened my eyes. Something white and yellow was standing next to me. I looked at him and I saw it was Tails. Tails? I looked around and saw I was on a couch, in Creams house… and everyone was okay. I saw Cream and Cheese look over from their chairs and smile at me. I saw team Chaotix come in the room with a cookie tray. I even saw Vanilla putting some more wood in the fireplace.

"Hey! He's awake!" Tails said happily drawing everyone's attention.

It was as if Tails had opened a floodgate on conversation. "Alright!" "He's okay!" "Yay,"

Now I understand. It was another nightmare. I had experienced many like it before. A lot of them had to do with Maria and the Ark. More recently however I've been having nightmares about the people around me. I know what it means too, the trauma I've experienced through my life has taught me this. I will always be so doubtful of myself that I will have nightmares about those I care about. And now those people were Team Chaotix, Cream, Cheese, Vanilla, Tails and pretty much everyone else.

"How did I get here," I asked holding my head, it hurt a lot for some reason. The fight I had with the robots in town didn't really hurt me, and the Chaos Blast did nothing but tire me out. Charmy chimed in with;

"Vector punched you in the face!" he smiled widely. Vector jumped in immediately to break up the confusion as Shadow began to clench his fists.

"I thought he was an intruder on Miss Vanilla's home! I was merely doing my best to ensure her safety! I mean, if you saw something kick in your door what would you've done?" That's when I remembered everything. I did go to this place on purpose looking for the yellow emerald. He kicked down the door and that's when there was a little haze, then the nightmare ensued. In that haze Vector must've hit me knocking me out.

"Sigh, at least it's over," I stood up and looked at Vector.

"Vector, I need your yellow emerald," I said seriously.

"What?!" he shouted back.

"But I've been saving it for just this occasion!"

"I need it now, it's a matter of saving Christmas," everyone in the room stopped what they were doing until Charmy asked; "For realzies?"

I looked right back at Charmy and said with a straight face; "For realzies," Vector had no choice. He grabbed the emerald from his pocket and gave it to me. I nodded at him in thanks and then walked silently to the door. That's when the nightmare's graphic images flashed through my head, all of them were so brutally killed by some robots. Were they Eggman robots? That didn't matter, I just kept remembering the images fresh in my mind. Finally I turned around to look at them and tell them what I had experienced. When I turned I saw smiling happy faces filled with cheer and joy. Just seeing those faces, that was enough to drive out the horrible images. I closed my eyes and smirked; "Thank you all for your help," I turned and opened the door when a little high voice said; "You're welcome! Come back anytime Shadow!" Cream. I turned to her and did my best to smile. "I will," I walked out the door and for the first time didn't pity them.

**So yeah, I knew I had to put this one out quick after the last chapter. If you did read the last chapter, then I'll tell you what it's purpose was in an innocent little story like this. That entire chapter as you've no doubt figured was a nightmare Shadow had. If you look at any Sonic game or show you'll see how innocent everything looks. Shadow however has always been tortured in mind and spirit and that chapter is a pretty solemn reminder of how bad Shadow's torment is. But the purpose of this chapter was to show how there will always be someone there who will comfort him. I hope this chapter was a big sigh of relief for all of you and I hope you keep reading to the end. Also: There will not be any more of those in this story. Horror chapters I mean.**


	9. Chapter 9: Maria Aids the Escape

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 9

Getting out of Station Square was child's play. I ran as fast as I could to Eggman's base and stopped. I jumped the wall with such nimble ease. As the searchlights scanned the courtyard I quickly checked the time; 4:30 A.M. exactly. The sun would be rising soon and I would be out of here with all the emeralds at that time. I jumped over a large war vehicle parked in the courtyard and landed on the other side, stopping myself from moving. Directly in front of me was a security-robot in sleep mode. If I made any noise then it would awaken and alert the entire base. I slowly walked around it and made my way to the wall of one of the Courthouse buildings. There were irons bar on a window just a little taller than me. I whispered inside; "Maria?"

A blonde haired hedgehog with a blue dress on came over to the window and said; "Shadow?" Maria's blue eyes met with Shadow's red ones. Shadow took the emeralds out of his pockets when Maria asked; "What are you doing here? If my cousin catches you then…"

Shadow interrupted and held the Chaos Emeralds up to her so she could see them. "No time, if I stay any longer they'll find me. I need you to take this to one of Eggman's prisoners. He is tall, has brown hair and eyes and was just recently captured, he's also human," Shadow said, keeping his eyes on a searchlight that was getting gradually closer by the second. Maria took the emeralds and nodded to Shadow. Shadow had known her ever since she had learned Eggman was her cousin, they were really close.

"I've gotta go. Oh, and tell him I'm waiting outside Eggman's base for him," he said about to escape into the ever brightening morning. The moon was setting and the orange purple color of the sky in the east was beginning to spread across the sky.

"Shadow!" she said quickly. He turned to her and asked; "Yes Maria?" She gestured for him to come closer to the bars and he leaned up to her, waiting for her to whisper something to him, that's when the unexpected happened. On his right cheek he felt her plant a little kiss, and then she pulled away from the bars saying; "Good luck, and be careful," she was a light shade of red, as was Shadow. He merely stared at her turn and run for the door and before he knew it she had exited the room. Shadow put his hand on his cheek and felt where she had kissed him, he felt… really good. He turned around and ran through the courtyard. He jumped the wall and landed on the other side, unseen.

"Humph," he said. "Is this what humans call, love?" he thought, he didn't know.

Maria ran through the halls of Eggman's lab. She came to many twists and turns until she made it into the main room, connecting her building to the large skyscraper that was Eggman's building. She looked around cautiously as she walked over to the main elevator. As she emerged from the small hallway into the main room, it looked a lot like the lobby of a new York building or hotel. She walked to the elevator and pressed the up button. As she waited she took the chaos emeralds out of her pockets and looked at them.

"Julian will be really upset if he learns I had these and didn't give them to him. Especially when he already has the other five…" she thought. For those who haven't seen SonicSong182's work Julian is Eggman. Btw, I dunno if that's accurately his real name or not, I just think it's a great idea for his name.

Just then Eggman opened a door entering the lobby. He had the five emeralds in his hands. He looked at them, lost in the promise they held. Maria shrieked and put her emeralds in her pockets. Eggman heard her shriek and looked over at her.

"Maria? What are you doing up at this time?" he asked surprised.

"Oh," she said smiling, trying to keep him from looking at her hands which were still in her pockets, gripping the emeralds.

"I just thought I'd take a walk around,"

Eggman smiled at her and said; "Well, be careful. The radar picked up something in the base grounds. If you see anything, let me know immediately!" he continued to walk off to the hallway she came in through. Just then, the elevator door opened up and she stepped in. she pressed button 22 and the elevator door shut and she ascended. Once on that floor she walked through the halls some more until she came to a room labeled; 'Containment Facility.'

She stepped inside and saw him. A man at the age of eighteen sitting down in a large glass container. The whole room looked like a large stadium, domed ceiling and all. He heard her walk in and said without turning; "Oh WHAT do you want now egghead!?" he shouted in an irritated tone. Dylan was still pretty upset about being captured by Eggman.

"umm," Maria started to say. The outburst had startled her and made her nervous. Dylan heard her feminine voice and turned around. That's when he noticed something incredible.

"That hair…" he thought. "Those eyes, I know I've seen them somewhere before,"

"Who are you?" he said standing up.

"I'm Maria Robotnik the Hedgehog," she said stepping closer to him.

Maria Robotnik. Now he remembered where she was from.

Dr. Gerald Robotnik was a great man, in science and family. When his granddaughter Maria was diagnosed with a fatal disease, he had her placed on the ark. Being up there had helped her condition greatly. It wasn't just the specially made oxygen, it was being with Shadow. He was always with her and protecting her. Shadow and Maria were as close as two friends could be, maybe even more.

But, his care for his granddaughter was maybe just a little too great. I was sent to this a while ago to investigate the Ark. It was potentially dangerous, no one in my organization knew anything about it. I went undercover as a scientist, one of Dr. Gerald's best ones at that. I was on the Ark for about two earth years until he summoned me and a few other scientists to one of the Ark's private science labs.

"Gentlemen," he said to us. The only light in the room was in the center of our circle of four men. It was one light bulb which hung loosely on a wire. In the center of our circle was a white blanket covering something.

"I have summoned you all here for something important. What I am about to reveal to you is top secret, and I trust each and every one of you not to tell a soul about it," we all looked at each other and nodded. He looked down at the blanket and then pulled it off the object. It was a hedgehog, no not shadow, he was already made. This one was different, it was female by the looks of it. It had on a blue dress with a red heart on it, blue shoes, and flowing blonde hair with a blue headband in it. It's eyes were shut, but I think I knew whose eye color it was going to be…

"What… is this?" another scientist asked. His name was Marcus.

"This is what will save my granddaughter," Gerald said.

"as you all know, my granddaughters disease can only be delayed, not stopped. Putting her up here was hopefully going to change that, but I had no such luck. So, I resorted to making this, with it I can transfer Maria's consciousness into a working and safe body. It was made to have the potential to be as strong as Shadow, and immune to any virus, disease, or illness," he said smiling and tapping the glass on the container.

That's when the last scientist in the room spoke, Jackson; "You used money and resources supplied to us by the government and military to build another body for your granddaughter? Has this been approved by the board of research?"

Professor Gerald looked at his creation and bluntly said; "No," The room was silent until I spoke out. "If G.U.N. heard about this they would stop our funding entirely,"

"No!" Gerald said. "It would be worse. It was hell getting them to approve project Shadow, if they learned we had made another being that could be as strong as him without their approval, they would see it as a large threat to the safety of the general public and take action against us…" We were all silenced once again, was the Doctor serious?

"Now I ask you all?" we looked up to him. "Will you keep this a secret?" We exchanged looks of concern and doubt until finally we all nodded. Dr. Gerald relaxed a little and said; "Good, now back to work all of you!" he said pointing us to the door. We all walked out.

…

Three days later, Gun had stormed the Ark. I escaped using my belt teleportation device, while pretty much everyone else was killed. I wasn't surprised at all when I learned Jackson had told G.U.N. I was surprised however that they hadn't found the hedgehog body for Maria. I guess she must've gotten into the hedgehog body some other way.

"Anyway, Shadow sent me. He wanted me to give you these," she said to me. She pulled out the teal and yellow emeralds and my jaw dropped.

"That was fast," I said. I was about to grab them when I remembered I was encased in glass. I stopped then pointed upwards at the giant glass container. Maria jumped a little and said; "Oh! Right," she scratched her head, a little embarrassed at forgetting I was imprisoned. She ran up to the balcony and touched some buttons on the control board. After I heard some clicking, the container unclenched from the ground and rose. I was free. I ran out of the container up to the balcony and stopped right next to Maria. She jumped again when she noticed how quickly I had ran to her. She gave me the emeralds and I thanked her. I stepped back and shouted with both chaos emeralds in hand; "Chaos Control!" I teleported away from the room and was outside of the base at last.

Maria got down off the balcony and walked to the exit when Eggman burst through the door. He said; "Well Dylan, you…" he stopped when he saw the container open and Maria standing there. She had to think fast or else. She ran up to Eggman and said; "Julian! Thank goodness you're here! The prisoner boy escaped from the glass prison! I opened it up to see if he was invisible or something but he's gone! He must've teleported or something,"

Eggman was apparently buying it. He pounded his fist on the wall and grunted; "He must've had the other two emeralds on him, and was smart enough to hide them from me," he said in anger.

"Maria!" he said. She straightened up nervously. "Head back to your room and stay there! With him loose in the base I wouldn't want you to get hurt!" he began to walk away.

"Okay Julian!" she said as cheerfully as she could. After he turned the corner she ran back to her room as fast as she could. She made it inside and locked the door. She took a deep breath and sighed. It was done.

I teleported to the front gate of the base. I landed on the grass and saw Shadow there waiting for me.

"Shadow!" I whispered to him. He saw me and ran over to me, and then he punched me in the face.

"Oow! What was that for?" he looked at me seriously.

"That's for saying I wasn't a good choice for North Pole destruction!"

"Ohhhh, Heh, you heard that?" I said nervously.

"I'm Shadow the Hedgehog, of course I heard it," leaving the topic, I asked him what the plan was. I told him Eggman had the other five emeralds and that we needed them back.

"Hmm," Shadow thought for a minute. "The Doctor has the emeralds with him, no doubt about that,"

"So we just need to lure him out," I said. Shadow snapped his fingers and said; "Yes,"

"And the easiest way to do that would be…" he said to me.

"A full frontal assault on his fortress," I said smiling. I tossed him an emerald and jumped up over the wall with him following me. I let the searchlights hit me and the alarms began to blare.

This is gonna be fun.


	10. Chapter 10: The Base Gets Egged

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 10

Maria had been placed in a hedgehogs body, of that there was no doubt after Dylan explained to Shadow what had happened. Before they ran into the base with its alarms blaring and robotic forces gathering, Dylan told Shadow what he knew. The duo began to storm the base, ready for action. Eggman's forces gathered around Shadow and Dylan as they entered the courtyard. Shadow looked at Dylan and they both nodded. The searchlights focused on them as the alarms continued to blare.

Dylan put his right arm out, as if he expected something to fall into it. A glowing white light in the shape of a weapon formed over his hand. It faded and a golden weapon dropped into his hand. It was a special kind of sword. It had a wooden hilt and had a sickle shaped edge instead of the usual straight one you'd expect from a sword. The entire blade part of it was shining golden. The Caneblade. He held it in his hands and shadow jumped on it, like it was a snow board. Dylan spun around and then whipped his arm around, flinging Shadow up into the air. Robots flew up after him as he soared.

Three gun wielding robots charged Dylan and he sliced one apart easily. He jumped at the next robot and decapitated it, grabbing the head as it flew, he took aim and threw it at the third robot. It smashed right into its head destroying it. More robots began to swarm Dylan. He spun around quickly at intense speeds making a small tornado destroying and slicing them.

Meanwhile Shadow was dealing with the aerial robots. He saw one coming from below him and used his homing attack to destroy it. Another tried to get him from behind but he did a spinning round house kick and knocked it down to the ground, exploding on impact. Another robot tried to shoot him at close range, but he ripped it's gun right off of it. He used it to blast it to bits and then fired at the remaining pursuing bots. He began to realize he was falling and thought fast. He grabbed a piece of metal from the air and rode it like a snowboard. He landed on top of one of the courthouse buildings, he skidded off it and landed on the ground. All of the robots were dealt with rather easily.

"Heh, there's no strength in numbers," he said. Dylan had stopped the tornado attack and looked over at Shadow. They both nodded and headed to the central building, where Eggman surely hiding. Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently.

"Is… is this an earthquake?" Dylan asked, struggling to keep on his feet.

"No! This has to be the Doctors work!" Shadow shouted back. The searchlights focused on Eggman who was in his usual egg flyer.

"Oh! Ho ho ho ho ho ho!" he laughed maniacally.

"You've done well to destroy all my robots, but not nearly well enough to face my newest creation!" he said.

"Please!" Dylan shouted back at him.

"Whatever you've made is going to go down just as easily as the other ones did!" he said smiling confidently. Eggmans face twisted in anger, he hated his snide confidence.

"We'll just see about THAT!" he slammed down on a red button on the control board and the buildings around them began to move. The courthouse buildings were being pulled up against the skyscraper one and forming a human shape around it. The satellites on top of the skyscraper building moved to the front of the top of the building, they looked like eyes. The courthouse buildings had formed into arms and legs as they broke down into parts of rock and metal rubble. Finally all the transforming was done. There it stood, a large metal robot, with the body of a skyscraper, the arms, hands, legs, and feet of courthouse buildings and a face made of scrap metal and satellite eyes.

"I call it the Skyscraping Egg!" he said while laughing evilly.

"Wow, the Skyscraping Egg… just wow," Dylan thought to himself, looking unimpressed at the large structure that stood before him. Shadow didn't care what it was called it was going down. He jumped at it to use a homing attack but was stopped suddenly by an electric force field. The antenna on top of the skyscraper was projecting a field of electricity around the Skyscraping Egg. They had no way to damage it.

"As soon as I'm done with you two and Sonic and Silver, this thing is headed straight to the north pole! It won't matter if Santa Claus has a force field or not, this will destroy his workshop without any inconvenience!" he laughed evilly. The large structure began to move its legs, taking its first incredibly large step. It easily moved half a mile in one step, if that was true then making it to Station Square would be very easy for this… thing!

Shadow wasn't about to give up! He continued to use homing attacks on the field hoping he would destroy it. Dylan however was using much more concentrated attacks, not really hoping to destroy the field but hoping to do something else. The machine kept walking across the large field while the two heroes could only watch. In a matter of a half hour, it had already gotten sight of Station Square. Eggman put it in his robots scope for weaponry and the guns began to fire. Guns and blasters opened up from all over the monstrous robot and began to fire at the city. Shadow was nearly beside himself in rage before he heard a voice of sanity shout to him;

"Shadow!" a chaos emerald was thrown to him and he grabbed it.

"Together!" Dylan shouted as he gripped his Caneblade tighter. It was glowing white and yellow. Shadow jumped up and used his chaos blast at full power, while Dylan did something else. He charged his weapon up, holding it over his shoulder until finally he shouted: "Golden Strike!" He made a downward slice, and a large beam of energy sliced out of his weapon and hit the force field. With the power of the Chaos blast and the slice, the field gave out and shattered. This was their chance, they both charged up the large building robot.

"Hmmm!?" Eggman said looking down at them as they began to run up the robot.

"Dammit! How did they get through that force field?" he pressed some more buttons on the control board and the guns focused on Shadow and Dylan. They dodged the bullets and continued up its legs, they met up around the chest dodging more of the bullets and rockets until Eggman came into sight.

"I'll get the emeralds, cover me!" Dylan said to Shadow. They split up, Dylan running closer to Eggman and Shadow running up to the robots blind spot, it's left shoulder. He landed on top of it and caught his breath for a moment. Suddenly a gun lifted out of the ground and looked around for Shadow, who had been standing on top of it. It looked left quickly as he tried to keep his balance on it, and then to the right even faster. He nearly fell off until he centered himself. He looked over at Eggman, hoping Dylan would distract him very soon. The giant robot had gotten significantly closer to Station Square and was getting closer by the second.

Dylan jumped up with incredible speed and flew up right in front of Eggman. He grabbed onto the tiny windshield on the Egg flyer and Eggman was pulled forward as the entire flyer tilted forward. He looked over at Dylan as he steadied the Egg flyer. Dylan climbed up and was face to face with Eggman. Eggman put on a face of anger and tried to punch him. Dylan pulled himself back, pulling the rest of the Egg flyer with him, the entire thing had flipped upside down. Eggman fell out of his chair and was holding onto the top of the chair he sat on. Dylan had somehow managed to get into the upside down cockpit and he pulled on the thruster until the flyer was right side up. Eggman had lost his grip on the flyer as it rotated and ended up grabbing onto the bottom of it, holding on for dear life.

"Okay, where are you, you little emeralds?" Dylan scanned the cockpit furiously looking for the emeralds. He found a little suitcase underneath the control board and tried to open it. There was a worded pass code. He tried the first thing that came to mind, 'Eggman' and it worked. Bokkun must've set the password. Speak of the devil, just as the suitcase opened revealing the emeralds, Bokkun flew out of nowhere and grabbed the open case. He snickered and flew off blowing a raspberry at Dylan. Eggman had climbed up to the edge of the carrier and watched Bokkun fly off with them. He shouted to Bokkun; "Bokkun! Close the case!" That's when Dylan started to button mash on the control board, hopefully it would do something useful. Eggman saw what Dylan was doing as he climbed up over the front of the flyer and grabbed his arms shouting; "Stop! Stop it! You don't know what you're doing!" Dylan found one button that was black and yellow and said danger and smashed down on it with his elbow. The force field around the robot flickered back to life as Bokkun unknowingly flew right into it. He dropped the case and the Chaos Emeralds began to fall out of it. Dylan and Eggman both shouted; "No!" Dylan stepped on Eggmans fat head and jumped off the egg flyer, sky diving down to grab the Emeralds. He had managed to get all five of them in his hands as Eggman climbed back into the Egg flyer. He looked down at Dylan and smiled menacingly. He flicked the glass cover off a red button that was labeled; "Fire Homing Missiles," he shouted out; "Now you'll pay!" as he raised his fist to slam onto the button.

Shadow ripped the gun off the ground and jumped into action. The gun began to fire uncontrollably as Shadow aimed it at the egg flyer. It shot into it making some holes. The egg flyer began to rock back and forth, stopping Eggman from hitting the button and the flyer lit on fire. It began to descend as he grunted in anger. The aiming device he had used to aim at Dylan was aiming all over the place, until Eggman slammed his fist down onto the fire button. Unfortunately it had aimed directly at the Skyscraping Egg's satellite face. The missiles fired and destroyed the face of the robot as Shadow began to fall away from the Egg flyer. Dylan grabbed the five emeralds and front rolled so he was looking up at Shadow. He threw the emeralds to Shadow and shouted; "Here!" Shadow grabbed each off them and all seven of them began to rotate around him. He had gotten a boost of speed, just enough to save Dylan from his fall. He grabbed Dylan and they both landed safely on the ground. The Skyscraping egg had stopped walking, a good thing too. It was practically IN Station Square. The citizens had taken notice of the behemoth of a machine and had gathered around to watch the fight unfold.

A news team had set up near the fight as the same news casting woman as before had began to speak into the camera. The news broadcast was being sent everywhere as an emergency broadcast, so Sonic and Silver both saw it in their hospital room. Amy walked in from the hallway and they all stared at the screen, hoping it would end okay.

The emeralds rotated around the duo as they felt their power enter their bodies. "I always wondered what this would feel like," Dylan said to Shadow. "Well then," Shadow smirked. "Get ready, it feels really intense the first time," The emeralds spun around them faster and faster until their powered had fully entered them. Shadow had transformed into his super form and Dylan did as well. Shadow's black color had been replaced with a bright yellow and red color. Dylan however looked different, his brown hair had glowed an intense yellow and didn't spike up. He had a glowing yellow aura around him and felt incredibly powerful.

"OH YEAH! That is the stuff right there!" Dylan shouted as the chaos energy filled his body. "Plan?" Shadow asked him. Dylan smiled and said; "Yeah..." He looked up at the giant robot and Eggman who was panicking.

"Destroy," They both flew up to the head of the building and prepared to attack. Shadow turned into a ball, getting ready for an amazing homing attack while Dylan charged his weapon with Chaos energy. It glowed a burning bright yellow and the blade grew in size, it was easily twenty feet long when he was done charging it. They both unleashed their attacks on the face of the robot and it exploded. Dylan slashed through the face with a large golden beam and Shadow had hit the face with tons of intense hits that it was hardly even recognizable as a face. The entire robot began to explode and light on fire after that. The arms fell off slowly and the legs collapsed. "NOOOOOO!" Eggman shouted as the rubble started to fall on the egg flyer, damaging it.

"I hate that Human and Hedgehog!" he shouted as the rubble crushed the egg flyer and brought it to the ground. The entire robot had come crashing down and was reduced to a pile of rubble. Dylan and Shadow landed in front of the mess that was Eggmans base/Robot and smiled. It was done. The people began to cheer and shout happily at the duo of heroes. Dylan gave Shadow a low five and they both flew off into the sky above Station Square.

"So," Dylan asked Shadow. "How long until this Super form wears off?"

"It's last until we run out of ring energy," he said back to him. That's when they both remembered something very crucial, Sonic and Silver were both still in the hospital and they both still needed to be treated. They changed course immediately and flew to the hospital. They stopped right outside of the window of Sonic and Silver's room and knocked on it. Silver looked over from the T.V. and was surprised, so surprised in fact that he had fallen right out of his bed. Sonic looked over and said something to Silver, it was inaudible through the glass.

Silver used his psychokenesis to open the window and the two flew in, for some reason Amy was nowhere to be found. Dylan and Shadow both put their hands on Silver and Sonics heads and their entire bodies glowed yellow for a split second and then it faded. After that a bright light flashed and Shadow and Dylan both stopped glowing yellow and the Chaos Emeralds were floating around them again. The emeralds flew out the window and then scattered in all different directions. The room was silent. Dylan looked over to Sonic and Silver and asked; "You guys feeling better?" Sonic got up using his arms, which had been broken, and loosened his neck a bit. Silver got up and rubbed his head from the fall and then they tried to move around. It had worked perfectly, Sonic and Silver had both been healed up. Sonic jumped and turned into a ball midair, and the bandages he had on him fell off him and landed in a pile underneath him. Finally he stopped and landed on the ground. He winked at Dylan and Shadow and gave his signature thumbs up and said; "Thanks Dylan! You too Shadow!" His confident disposition had returned to him at last. Silver used his psychokenesis to remove all his bandages and put them in the trash can. He dusted himself and said; "Thanks Dylan…" he said happily. He looked over to Shadow who was starting to get angry and quickly said; "Y-you too Shadow!" Quickly remembering what happened last time he had made Shadow angry. Dylan and Sonic both laughed at the situation and the room was once again silent. At least until Amy walked in.

"Sonic!" she shouted running up to him and hugging him. Just seeing him up and moving again was enough to make her heart fill with joy. Sonic awkwardly took a step back as she continued to hug him.

"I'm so happy! I couldn't stand to watch you sit there covered in bandages! I'm so happy Sonic!" she said. Tears of joy began to fill her eyes. Shadow turned away from the scene, while Silver began to whistle and look anywhere but Sonic and Amy. Sonic looked Amy in the eyes and both their faces turned a bit red for a second. Dylan looked at the two of them, they both knew what they wanted to do but they were too scared to do it, that's when Dylan intervened. He said something so forward, so point blank that in any other situation it would've been thought of as crazy.

"JUST KISS EACHOTHER ALREADY!" he said in a slightly annoyed tone. Sonic and Amy both looked at each other a little flustered by the sudden outburst until Sonic did something Crazy. He pulled Amy in and gave her a quick two second kiss. He pulled away quickly and his face turned redder than the red Chaos emerald. Amy was amazed, she was in a daze just looking up at the ceiling saying these three words; "Sonic… kissed…me…" she had a small dumb smile on her face and a bit of drool came out of her mouth. Silver, Dylan, and even Shadow looked at Sonic dumbfounded. Sonic saw their looks and immediately said with a red face; "It was just a Christmas present!" Shadow began to laugh at Sonic, he looked ridiculous. Silver joined in and Dylan did as well.

"Good to see they've got their holiday spirit back," Dylan thought. Eggman was defeated, Shadow laughed at other's ridiculousness, Sonic was back to normal and Silver was being… well Silver.

"This is nice," Dylan thought. He looked at the clock and out the window. It was 6:30 A.M. Christmas Eve morning. As the sun rose from over the horizon the sky was filled with orange and yellow color. Sonic, Shadow, Silver, and Amy looked out at the new morning. Snow had begun to fall, glistening off the beautiful new sky.

"Mission Complete," he said to himself as he took in the glorious new day.

Or so he thought… **End of Part 1**


	11. Chapter 11: The Stigma of Iblis

Shadow Saves Them All

Part 2: Chapter 11

Silver the Hedgehog was not always a happy psychokinetic hedgehog. Once… he was lost and alone, desperate and needing someone to care for him.

Iblis… he hated that creature for a personal reason.

It was a lovely day in Soleanna. A large white male hedgehog and a teal blue female hedgehog were walking down the sidewalk. They both licked their ice cream, holding hands with their child who was walking in between them. He was a small white hedgehog with an… interesting hairstyle, he had on white and blue gloves and little yellow and blue boots.

They walked among the thousands of people in the city simply enjoying the summer day. The family stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the light to change before crossing. The beautiful sun glistened down on the city. Some kids were skateboarding on the sidewalks, while other couples sat by the fountains and talked or simply cuddled. The city was calm and peaceful…

No one saw it coming. The flames of Iblis had spread in a matter of minutes. They had decimated the entire city so fast that the white hedgehog only had a second to jump in front of his son in order to save him. The little hedgehog screamed and cried out in fear as his father was incinerated by the fires. His mother had been crushed by falling rubble and was not likely to have survived. The little hedgehog watched the scene, the memory was burned into his mind. The flames took shape of a face, a monsters face and opened its mouth wide, as if to swallow the hedgehog in flames. That's when it happened, out of nowhere the Caneblade slammed into the fire beast and dispersed the flames. A man jumped out from hiding and grabbed the Caneblade and the hedgehog and ran.

The flames reassembled and chased after him in a roaring fury. The man was fast, but the flames of Iblis caught up to him easily. The man ran onto the side of a building and jumped off it sideways to dodge a fireball. He landed on a highway and kept on running. Soleanna was destroyed. The sky was orange and grey with clouds and flames and the buildings looked blown out and abandoned. A large flaming tornado formed from the Iblis flames behind him, making it a challenge to outrun. The man jumped and turned around in the air, running backwards. Cars, debris and fireballs all flew from the tornado. The man countered all of them using his Caneblade and kept on running until he was tripped by a pipe. He began to roll and the hedgehog child started to cry. He thought fast and got to his feet, he stood firm as the tornado engulfed him and the child. It swarmed around him and the child, burning his skin and cutting and tearing his clothing. He stood still holding the child close to him to prevent it from being hurt. He tensed his entire body and focused the energy he collected from the tornado and finally he opened his eyes, they were glowing golden yellow.

"GGGGRRRREEEEAAAAATTTTTT BLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAASSSSSSTTTTTT!" he shouted in fury. A golden wave of energy was unleashed from his body which pushed away the flames and dispersed the tornado. He relaxed his body again as the imminent danger was destroyed… for the moment anyway. He looked around, as tired as he was and saw in the far off distance, a group of children huddled near a few adults. He ran towards them with what little energy he had left and collapsed when he got there. The people helped the man to his feet and were shocked when they saw a child with him, it was asleep.

"What happened to you young man?" a lady asked him. He didn't respond, he was too busy catching his breath. He handed her the child and leaned on a wall while regaining his strength. After he caught his breath he told the woman to tell the child that a creature named; 'Iblis' did all of this. He handed the woman a locket that was in the shape of an 'S' and told her to give it to him when he woke up. The man ran away quickly before she could retaliate and clicked something on his belt, he was teleported away to somewhere else. The woman opened the locket and saw a picture of a white male hedgehog and a teal blue female hedgehog cuddling their baby boy... On the inside of the locket there was something engraved; "To our child, Silver,"

"Mission Complete,"


	12. Chapter 12: Sonics Time is Running Short

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 12

**Hello all, I've been off the story for a little bit to focus on other things for a little while, but don't worry! This story will keep on trucking! Anyway, I've been getting into a very interesting idea, I find it very easy to write and read stories when I listen to music that fits the situations the stories have. So I figured I'd try an experiment. If you guys want to, put on a specific song while reading I feel it enhances the experience. You don't have to if you don't want to but I think it really adds something to the storytelling. But that's just me. :) Anyway, the song for this one is 'Digital Root' from '9hours 9 persons 9 doors' love that game! Anyway, put on that song when it says (Now) if you guys want to. Enjoy. :) Sincerely: RoyMcCoy **

It was lunchtime in station Square on Christmas Eve, our heroes Sonic, Shadow, Silver, and Dylan were all stopping for a bite to eat after the incredible events that transpired the night before. Shadow, and Dylan had both collected the seven Chaos emeralds and stopped Dr. Eggmans evil plan to destroy Santa's workshop and saved Christmas! And all before breakfast!

The four heroes had stopped at a cozy diner as the snow started to fall a little harder. The three hedgehogs stepped inside with snow in their quills and fur, while Dylan's clothes were covered in a generous amount of snow as well. They brushed themselves off while they were being shown to their table. It was a nice four person booth, Sonic sat on the left side with Dylan, while Silver and Shadow sat across from them.

"Whew!" Sonic said sitting down in relief as the waitress left to get some menus.

"Eggheads been taken down, so now we can sit back and relax for the rest of the holiday season!" Sonic put his hands behind his head and sat back. The entire diner was filled with Christmas decorations and there was even a Christmas tree outside in the parking lot.

"Order anything you want guys, I'll cover the bill," Dylan said. Sonic sat up and looked at Dylan and asked;

"About that, how come you always have so much money?" The thought was pretty interesting. Every time Dylan was in town he would go out to eat with everyone before he left, and he could always cover the expenses, no matter how great. Dylan reached into his pocket and pulled out a large rectangular device and placed it on the table, everybody stared at it.

"It looks like a trap from Ghostbusters," Silver said pointing to it.

"That's what I was going for!" Dylan said, happy that Silver was able to guess it.

"This device can register the currency of any universe I enter, and it can create an unlimited amount of legitimate U.S. dollars. I knew I would need it so I made it myself!" he pressed a few buttons on the device and then the top part opened up and out popped a twenty dollar bill. Shadow grabbed it and held it up to the light, the watermark was easy to see. It wasn't counterfeit. He tossed the dollar back to Dylan and he grabbed it and put it in his pocket. The waitress came over with menus and placed them on the table. She pulled out a notepad and pen and asked; "Can I get you gentlemen started with some drinks?"

"I'll have a Sprite please," Silver said opening his menu.

"Coca Cola please," Shadow said casually.

"Mountain Dew please," Sonic said.

"Root beer please," Dylan said opening his menu.

"Okay then I'll put those right in for you!" the waitress said smiling and walking away.

**(Now)**

Dylan was about to speak more about his device when he spotted someone across the diner. He had just walked in and had dark black hair with solid brown eyes. He was dressed in a metal armor and sat down at the counter, ordering a coffee. Dylan looked at him suspiciously.

"What is _he _doing here?" Dylan thought to himself.

"You guys stay here, I'll be back in a little bit," Dylan said getting up. Sonic got up and said; "I'm coming with you," Dylan was about to speak, but Sonics face told him he wasn't going to be swayed. Shadow stood up out of his seat and said;

"No Sonic! Don't go!" Sonic looked over at him and said; "You'll be fine," the two of them started walking away as Shadow kept saying; No! Wait, please! Don't me here!" They were gone. Shadow slowly and angrily looked over his shoulder to a cheery Silver asking; "What's up Shadow?"

"Must… not… kill…" Shadow kept thinking over and over as Silver tried to speak to him.

Dylan walked over to the man in armor as he sipped his coffee, with Sonic following behind him. The man noticed Dylan approaching with Sonic and put down his coffee, he looked at Dylan with cocky anticipation, like Dylan had done something wrong, and the man knew what it was, and was all too eager to tell him.

"John," Dylan said to the man sternly. The man stood up and smiled cockily saying; "Well hello my little friend! What's it been? Two months?" Dylan stopped him.

"Not long enough. What are you doing here? I thought I told you, I've got things under control in this world,"

"Well apparently not," John said uninterested. "Command says you still haven't fixed the interference," This took Dylan by surprise.

"That's not right," Dylan began to say. "I finished the mission just this morning! 6:30 A.M. Christmas eve morning on the dot!" John was not impressed.

"Well, whatever you did, or didn't do, you didn't fix it,"

"Tell command I'll figure out whatever it is and act immediately!" Dylan said, trying desperately to get John off his back.

"That's not enough anymore," John said more seriously. A suddenly eerie feeling swept over Dylan and Sonic as Sonic spoke.

"What do you…mean?"

"I mean, things are getting pretty serious, Hedgehog," John said.

"I…" before Dylan could speak john continued.

"Power shifts in favor of the villains call for extreme measures, especially in this universe. We send in peaceful agents like you to fix the problem the old fashioned way, but when your time is up, it's my turn," John said putting on an evil grin. The seriousness and the eeriness settled in for a moment until Dylan spoke.

"How much time do I have left to complete the mission?" he said with his head down. John finished his coffee and began to walk out the door.

"You've got twelve hours," he lifted up his left sleeve pointing to his watch, it was exactly 12:00 noon. He turned around to face Sonic and Dylan.

"But remember Dylan," he put on an even more dastardly and distorted smile.

"This is your **last chance**," he exited the diner and left their sight. Dylan stood there for a moment, stone cold. He turned around and started walking back to the booth. Sonic turned away from looking for the man and ran back to Dylan.

"What was that all about?" Sonic asked.

"It's… It's nothing," Dylan said in a dark tone.

"If it was nothing you would've told me about it," Sonic said. Dylan sat back down in his seat, ignoring Shadow who was about to beat the life out of Silver. They both looked over at Dylan and wondered why he was so gloomy. Sonic sat back down next to him and asked once again;

"What's going on here?"

"…" Silver and Shadow sat back down.

"…" They all looked intently at him until finally he spoke.

"Fine," just before he could speak a waitress come over to the table with food.

"Wha? When did we order?" Dylan asked astonished.

"The waitress came over and asked for our orders, so we just ordered for you guys," Silver said. It wasn't really hard to guess what Sonics favorite food was, and Dylan would eat just about anything. Silver got a filet o' fish with fries. Shadow started eating his Steak with potatoes. Sonic stared in wonderment at his four Chili dogs. Dylan got a meatball sub with fries. As they ate, Dylan decided to tell them his story.

"I work for a group of people who work to keep the power in each and every universe in balance between good and evil. I am part of the first task force. We all undergo incredible training to gain great strength and speed, as well as intelligence. I am sent as the first member of a pair of people in a team. I'm the peaceful agent who tries to solve the problem using the help of the worlds inhabitants as well as my own abilities. John however, is trained to be much more… ruthless than myself. If I cannot complete my mission in the allotted time then the universe is considered a hostile threat towards itself and then John, or the second person, takes serious action. He commands a large legion of killer robotic humans and dogs, they are trained to kill **anyone**, as in, no one is spared. Women, children, no one…"

Shadow stopped eating and his head began to hurt. Why did this sound so familiar? Was it… the dream? He remembered the dogs paw turning into shrapnel and the robots hand interchanging for a nail gun… it gave him shivers. The graphic images flashed through his mind… would that gruesome dream become… reality?

"My job at this point is simple, figure out what the timeline interference is by midnight tonight, or everyone here is going to be in serious jeopardy," Dylan said finishing his story, and his meal. Everyone was silent, the chattering of the people around them was drowned out by the eeriness of the situation. Eventually everyone finished eating and they waitress gave them the check. They paid and exited the diner.

Dylan stopped everyone before they could run off. "Listen, we should all get some rest. I'd say we all sleep until 5:30 P.M. okay," everyone was surprised.

"But, that's five and a half hours that we lose from the time!" Sonic said.

"Well we need our rest! We can't do anything if we're exhausted! You guys telling me that you're all not tired?" No one spoke, they were all actually quite tired, Silver and Sonic got practically no sleep in the hospital and Shadow and Dylan were up all night looking for Chaos emeralds and fighting robots. Unless you count Shadows cat nap with the horror dream. Everyone agreed and nodded their heads.

"Okay then, we'll meet back here at 6:00 then. We'll grab something to eat on the way out of town and then we're gone!" Dylan said beginning to sprint off for Creams house.

"Wait a minute!" Sonic said running in front of him to stop him.

"Where are we going?" Silver and Shadow both looked at him.

"Isn't it obvious?' Dylan said smirking. "The North Pole of course!"


	13. Chapter 13: Those Dang Sidequests

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 13

5:30 P.M. Sharp, time to get moving. Dylan got up from the couch in Cream's house. He walked grabbed his jacket and Caneblade off the coat rack in front of the door. He looked to his left and saw Vector, Charmy, Espio, Vanilla, Cream and Cheese sitting at the dinner table with Tails and Amy. They must've stayed the night, when Dylan remembered something. Where the hell were Knuckles and Rouge?

"I'll get Knuckles the Snowman and get him a coffee or something on the way to the party," he remembered Rouge telling him the night before. Where did they go? Did Rouge make a break for Angel Island with Knuckles pursuing her? No way, it had to be something else. Unless, Eggman was looking for Chaos Emeralds at that time…

He zipped up his jacket and hastily thanked Vanilla for letting him stay. He burst out of the door and ran quickly to the "Starbucks" across the street, it had a large hole in the front of the space and had a sign on the building saying "Under Construction," and was unsurprisingly not very crowded. He ran to the front counter and said, without missing a beat.

"Did you see a red echidna and a white bat come in here last night?"

The cashier froze for a second then cautiously said; "Y-yeah, those dudes got some coffees and then those freak robots broke in,"

"Robots?"

"Yeah bro," the man said relaxing a little. He spoke with a Hawaiian accent.

"They broke in last night, didn't you hear?" as a matter of fact, he didn't. Dylan slammed his fist on the counter, denting it.

"Did the robots take them?"

"Yeah bro! It was intense!" That was all he needed to hear. Dylan burst out of the building just as quickly as he had entered and ran for it. Where would he go? Where could go? Eggman was beaten, so what was left? Where would Eggman have taken them that wasn't the base? Then he remembered Maria, she wasn't in those buildings that made up the 'Skyscraping Egg' so she was probably in a safe house somewhere. Eggman actually thought ahead!

Dylan stopped in his tracks on the sidewalk, he thought for a moment. Where would Eggman make a safe house? He stopped suddenly when he remembered something Eggman said once;

"The power of the Master Emerald is amazing! With it I could locate all seven Chaos Emeralds in no time!" One by one the pieces clicked together like parts of a puzzle and the gears started to turn. He didn't capture Rouge and Knuckles for hostages, he wanted them because they both knew where the Master Emerald was on Angel Island! But did that mean Maria was with them? Who knows.

Dylan stopped in his tracks and looked around for a second. After getting his bearings he rushed off to Angel Island. Running as fast as he could out of Station Square and across fields, over mountains, and even falling out of a tree. After making it to the top of an old mountain Dylan could see he was about twenty miles from the floating island.

"Well it's still airborne, so they haven't found it yet," Dylan thought. He backed up a little bit and then jumped at intense speeds. Soaring through the air and getting closer to the Island by the second. He got closer and closer until he landed square on his feet on the edge of the island.

"Phew!" he sighed.

"Now to look for them," he dashed through the forest keeping his eyes open and checking everywhere for a sign of a white bat or red echidna. He checked his watch, 5:45 P.M. he had fifteen minutes until the rendezvous. He ran faster and faster, crossing the desert, blazing through the forest, looking in the volcano, and everywhere else he could think to look. He stopped at the bottom of the mountain to catch his breath. When he heard a rustling noise, it was a person moving through the foliage nearby. It was Maria, dressed in her normal light blue dress, which gave her away easily. Dylan ducked down and kept low and out of sight.

"What is she doing here?" he thought franticly. It was only until he saw the people behind her that he knew what had happened.

"I made sure not to tell you my real plan!" Eggmans words rang through his head, he had forgotten about that and now he knew what it was. The 'Skyscraping Egg' was a distraction. Omega was walking behind Maria with his gun to her head, but something was different about him. His usually red eyes now had a glowing yellow to them, he also had some electricity flowing around him, shorting him out every few seconds. Behind him was Rouge and Knuckles, both of them handcuffed. Two other Eggman robots were behind them with guns.

Maria was being used as a hostage so Knuckles and Rouge would show Omega the way to the Master Emerald. Omega must've been given a virus or something by Eggman to make him do what he told him to. With the power of the Master Emerald finding the other Chaos Emeralds would be a cinch, even for Eggman! His mission was clear, save them. But if he jumped in right now then guns would start to blaze! He needed a plan. He followed behind them closely, watching them. They travelled for another ten minutes before they stopped at the Master Emerald shrine. Dylan had been there before and had made a trap just in case. He tossed a blanket over the Master Emerald and connected the back of the blanket to a wire, the wire was connected to some rockets aimed directly at where someone standing in front of the emerald would be. Once they took it off. BOOM!

He waited as the two Eggman robots stepped forward, leaving Omega to keep the three of them in check. They pulled the blanket off and the trap went off. The rockets screeched to life in the distance and fired. They hit the two Eggman robots blowing them up on contact. Omega grabbed Maria and put the gun to her head saying robotically; "Come out or else,"

I was still hidden but this time I was ready. I slowly walked up the stairs of the shrine behind Omega and took out my Caneblade. Don't worry, I wasn't going to hurt Omega. I raised up my weapon over Omegas head as the robot looked left and right scanning for an enemy. Rouge and Knuckles saw me and smiled, Omega saw them and followed their gaze. As he began to turn around I had to act fast, I brought the hilt of my weapon down onto Omegas head Full Force. With a loud CLUNK! Omega's eyes shut off and his entire body deactivated, he fell with an even louder clunk to the ground.

"Yes!" I said. I was pretty proud of myself for that one. That was the quietest I had ever been in my life. Maria ran from Omega and hugged me, tearing up.

"T-t-Thank You!" she said sobbing. That was probably the most intense situation she had ever been in. I patted her on the head and gave her a warm smile.

"It's alright you're okay now," she smiled back and hugged me tighter, making me cringe a little.

"Humph, nice job pal," Knuckles said grinning at me as he pulled his handcuffs apart.

"I would've done that before but Maria was in danger,"

I pulled Maria off me and he walked over to Omega's body. I checked the gun on Omegas arm, I wasn't surprised at all after investigating it.

"Not really," I said getting up. "There were no bullets or lasers in the gun," Knuckles, Rouge, and Maria were all struck with surprise, Dylan however was not.

"Eggman might be evil, but he's not THAT evil. Maria is the only family he has, I doubt he would ever harm her," I said dusting off my hands. I checked my watch, 5:51 P.M. nine minutes left to go. Maria stopped sobbing after Rouge gave her a hug, one that she really needed.

"Well, thanks for saving us Dylan," Rouge said winking at me. Heh heh, now I know what Knuckles feels like when she flirts with him. I scratched my head, feeling my face go a little red.

"Heh, no problem," I said awkwardly. "So anyway, I guess you guys will be staying here?" Knuckles looked over at the Master Emerald. He stared at it for a moment and then turned back to me. He took a glance at Rouge and then sighed.

"Well, I guess I will, but only if that bat comes too!" he said pointing at her.

"Awww, still worried about your pretty Emerald Knucky? Why don't you let me take it off your hands?" she said with a sly smile. Knuckles face got red with rage.

"That emerald is mine! Stop asking me that!" he said grunting. Rouge snickered and flew into the air. I looked back down at the unconscious Omega and felt a little bad for him, I couldn't carry the guy all the way back to Station Square, so what was I going to with him? Then a thought occurred. I touched my belt buckle and Alice came on the display.

"Yes Dylan?" she asked.

"Hey Alice, can you digitally pixelate someone into another location yet?"

"Yeah," she said typing on some keys. "I finished the program yesterday, sadly though, it only works on inanimate objects. Like a rock for example.

"What about a deactivated robot?" she sat back in her chair and thought for a second.

"Well… I dunno, I haven't tested it on one yet so…"

"Great!" I interrupted. "Make it so!"

"Wait what?" she sat back up in her chair and I deactivated the call.

"Who was that?" Knuckles asked.

"That was my assistant, Alice,"

"Hmmm, she looks pretty," Rouge said to me. She put on her sly smile and asked;

"So are you and her… you know…" I knew what she was insinuating and I was going to stop her right there, if not for a file loading up to my belt. I clicked a button on it and a new program was installed into my belt. I linked it up to my watch and aimed it at Omega. With a click of a button a green laser beam hit Omega and he was turned into little pixels, like ones you would see in an 8-bit game. The Pixels hovered in the air and them soared off in the direction of Station Square.

"So are we going or what?" Rouge asked still flying in the air.

"Yeah! One sec," I shouted back. Maria got on my back and I got off to a sprint. Rouge flew down behind me and picked up Knuckles, much to his discontent. He was struggling and grunting, saying stuff like; "Hey! Let me go! Get off my you stupid bat!"

I looked back and chuckled, this was going to be a fun day. I ran at incredible speeds and then jumped off the edge of Angel island. Maria and I screamed in joy and excitement. Rouge shouted; "Woo Hoo!" While Knuckles screamed in fear, he had never fallen at such great speeds. Finally I hit the ground running and bolted for Station Square with Rouge and Knuckles right behind me, and with Maria literally right behind me. Finally we made it to Station Square and I stopped in the center of the park, exactly where we had agreed to Rendezvous. I checked my watch, 6:00 P.M. on the dime. It was getting kinda dark out, the sun was starting to set a little and the city was bustling with people and cars. I looked over and saw Sonic, Shadow, and Silver all waiting by the statue at the center of the park chatting. They ran over to me as I set Maria down off my back. Rouge set a very upset Knuckles down on the ground as he pouted.

"You made it," Sonic said.

"With some friends I see," Shadow added, noticing everyone.

"Yeah, what's up? We thought you were going to be here early to get a head start, we even stopped at a McDonald's for a quick meal," Silver said, carrying his light blue backpack from the hospital on his shoulder. My stomach growled, I just now noticed how hungry I was.

"Well I might tell you guys but I'm just too darn hungry to remember," I said with obvious intent. Silver grabbed a hamburger out of his backpack and tossed it to me, I quickly unwrapped it and took a bite.

"Mmm, much better," I said.

"Now where was I? Oh yeah," I gave them the Sparknotes version of the story and finished my Hamburger.

"And that's what happened," I said concluding the story. Suddenly a ton of Pixels flew in the center of the group and re-pixelized whatever it was. When it was done we saw Omega lying there, still out cold.

"Well I guess it worked," I said to myself. Omega's eyes flickered back to life and he began to stand back up again, but this time he wasn't shorting out and his eyes were back to their normal red.

"Scanning memory banks, no files pertaining my presence here," he said.

"I think I'll take him back to my place," Maria said taking Omega's hand.

"I'll fill him in on what's happened and check him for any bugs or viruses," she said cheerfully. She had gotten back to her happy self and was more than happy to help.

"Okay I guess," I said. She walked away guiding Omega. I pulled my attention back to the current situation and spoke to Rouge and Knuckles;

"Well it's been fun, but we've gotta get going! I said." I expected Rouge and Knuckles to ask why we were leaving but instead they were compliant… huh.

Knuckles started to speak; "Yeah well, we already missed the Christmas party, so I don't wanna miss the…" Rouge slapped her hand over his mouth and shushed him.

"Sorry about him! He doesn't know what he's talking about, well gotta go! Bye bye boys!" she pulled Knuckles into the air with her as he struggled to break free of her grip.

"Have Fun!" she shouted to us winking, and then she flew off. I chuckled, it was nice to see them back to normal.

"Alright then!" Sonic said.

"Let's get going!" I nodded my head, alongside Shadow and Silver. I bolted straight north and I was out of Station Square in not time. Sonic caught up to me in no time as Shadow and Silver caught up as well. How did Silver do it? Easy, slowest runner in the series, also the fastest psychokinetic _flyer. _And we were off to the North Pole, but I still had the feeling that I was forgetting something, something important…


	14. Chapter 14: Memory Mistress

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 14

**Author's Note: Hello Peoples! Sorry I've been off the site for about a week but now I'm ready to get back in the game and finish this story! :) This chapter is another song chapter so if you, queue up 'Morphogenetic Sorrow' yes the same one from Chapter 7. Don't worry though, it's not filled with gore or anything, just two curse words and that's it. Play the song when it says **(Now) **and you'll really get the full experience. Enjoy!**

The cold wind rushed past the four heroes as they ran north towards their goal, the North Pole. Silver flew, the white snow blending right in with his silver fur, the only thing that stood out was his light blue backpack. Sonic ran, his scarf flapping in the wind as he ran at super-sonic speeds. Shadow rocketed forward with determination in his eyes. Dylan lead the pack running just as fast as Sonic.

"So," Dylan said looking back at them.

"Do you guys think that Rouge and Knuckles are a good couple?" they all looked at him unusually.

"Hey I'm just trying to make conversation," he said turning back.

"Yeah," Sonic said, Dylan looked back.

"I think they're a pretty good couple, but I think the whole master emerald thing is a bit of a roadblock," he said to the group.

"Well," Shadow entered the conversation.

"I think we've all been paired up with someone in our social circle," he said with his eyes shut. He acted as if he didn't care, but in reality it really fascinated him. The idea of paring up certain people, or shipping them, was an interesting concept, at least to Shadow.

"Yeah, I've seen people ship you and rouge, Shadow. And then there's you and Maria…" Dylan began to trail off while shadows face turned a thick red at the mention of him being shipped. Sonic and Silver snickered at the hedgehog.

"Then there's the only couple anyone's ever really shipped Silver with and that was Blaze," he said looking up trying to think. Shadow cracked a smile and began to laugh uncontrollably. He mainly disliked Silver because he was optimistic. He had learned to tolerate Sonic's optimism but Silvers was too much, so he laughed it off whenever it was at Silver's expense. Nothing personal, he just doesn't like too much happy. Shadow gripped his sides as his laughter carried on.

"Finally there's Sonic whose been paired up with pretty much every girl," Shadows laughter reached a new level of ridicule.

"Stop! Stop it! I can't stop laughing!" he said with some puffs of breath. Dylan had to shut up Shadow, and he knew exactly how.

"Then again, all of you guys have been paired up with each other from time to time," Shadow's laughter and the others snickering stopped immediately when they heard this.

"The same goes for several other guys in the series…" Sonic stopped him immediately.

"AAA! Heh heh!" he shouted interrupting Dylan.

"We don't talk about that stuff anymore!, heh heh," Sonic chuckled nervously. It was a frightening thought to all of them when it first came up, but now they've all gotten used to it. But now it was like 'Sonic 06' not something you talk about much. Silver decided to turn the conversation around.

"So then Dylan," Dylan looked back again at Silver.

"Do you have a girlfriend back where you live,"

"…" a suddenly dark aura surrounded him. No one spoke, Dylan opened his mouth to speak, but only said a few words;

"Alice isn't my girlfriend, someone else was," Sonic sensed something wrong, but wasn't about to pry. Their surroundings had changed greatly, the mountains and forests of the world were replaced with open fields covered in thick layers of snow. They had clearly covered plenty of ground since they first ventured off. A lot of snow covered ground.

"The north pole is about fifty miles ahead, get ready," Dylan said breaking the silence that had been sustained by the group. Dylan's dark mood was once again immediately replaced with his usual friendly one. He looked at the hedgehogs and smiled, letting them know everything was okay. Silver bought it, Shadow disregarded it, but Sonic could see through it. Behind that smile was a deep frown, and he had something on his mind.

"Who?" Sonic asked.

"Who what?" Dylan asked.

"Who was she… your girlfriend?" Sonic asked, trying to tread lightly.

"…" no response, and the dark mood had returned. Dylan stopped on the dime, which took the others a second to see, they all stopped as well and ran over to him. He had his head down, looking at the ground, as if to hide his face from meeting their eyes. Sonic slowly walked up to Dylan and put his hand on his friends shoulder, Dylan was starting to tear up.

"I wanna understand what you feel Dylan. What happened?" he asked.

"We don't have time for this!" Shadow interrupted. They looked over at him, and he was already half a step in the direction of the north pole.

"We have to investigate, pronto!" he was ready to for some action, you could see it in his eyes. Sonic was about to speak when Dylan put his hand up to stop him.

"I guess, I'll tell you guys," he said.

"It started… with my education, everyone I knew was put into a very focused educational system. No one was left behind, and everyone was at the top of their mental capacity," he began to tell the story slowly, as if painfully extracting the memory from his mind.

"Her name was… Becca. Blonde, green eyes, and beautiful. She was one of my few friends. I had three others but that's not important. She was lovely in every way you could imagine," His mind began to enter a state of nostalgia.

(Now)

"She was lovely, in body and in spirit. I remembered spending some days after school walking around the outskirts of my home. It was always so beautiful, she loved going there, and so did I," Sonic, Shadow, and Silver listened more intently. Dylan's tone began to sadden.

"One day after a harsh mission, long after we got out of school," a tear trickled down his cheek. The pain got worse and worse. The closer he got to concluding his story, the closer he got to snapping into insanity.

"She walked up the hill with me, to our favorite spot. We talked for hours about getting married, maybe having kids. This surprised them all, he was seventeen, and talking about kids.

"You're seventeen and talking about kids!" Silver shouted.

"I look seventeen here, no use looking my real age here," he said.

Sonic's eyebrow rose in interest.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty Five," he said plainly. The pain had stopped, at least for a little bit. Now it was coming back.

"Anyway, we discussed ideas about a family. We had been in love for ages. I remember some days we would cuddle under a tree and watch the sunset…" The pain was reaching its peak.

"The day after that, I was going to propose. I went out, sold some old valuables and got enough money for an engagement ring. I packed a picnic lunch for us, I was going to ask her on the hilltop where we always were. My friends even helped me out with the money, they all worked double missions to help me accomplish my goal. They are such goods friends…" This was it, if he told them, he would snap, or…

"I walked up the hill with her… She was so excited, she was a little bandaged, but okay. We sat down… and we got to talking as I opened up the basket. I pulled out the ring… I turned to make sure it was presentable… and then when I turned around…" he started croaking, his voice was cracking slightly and he began to sob, more tears running down his face.

"She collapsed into my arms… gone," he fell to his knees, tears running down his face like a waterfall of pain.

"Her… (sniff) last words to me were… 'Kiss me goodbye…' only after she left did I realize what they meant. Before I got the chance she was snatched away from me, and everyone who she ever made happy," his sadness converted to rage as he continued to speak.

"I brought her to medical attention but… she was already gone… She had been POISONED by a monster in her last mission. No one knew it except her, and she didn't tell anyone because she didn't want them to feel sad…but…" he began to angrily clench his fists and grind his teeth.

"She was a peaceful agent like myself, her warlord partner was responsible for her safety… and he let her get killed…" he snapped his head up and looked them in the eyes. His eyes were no longer filled with tears and sorrow, but instead a glowing intense red with anger and fury.

"HER WARLORD PARTNER WAS JOHN!" he shouted at the top of his lungs! He screamed bloody murder continuously to rid his body of the pent up anger and destruction.

"HIS IGNORANCE AND SELF ABSORBED EGO PREVENTED HIM FROM SAVING AN INNOCENT GIRL'S LIFE!" Sonic could sense his hostility rising to a dangerous level and had to stop it. Silver and Shadow felt it too.

"**THAT GOD DAMNED BASTARD LET HER DIE!" **He screamed in a voice that didn't sound entirely human. He kept shouting and screaming until a punch landed on his right cheek. Shadow knocked Dylan back about five feet and he hit the ground. Shadow landed on the ground from the leaping punch and shouted;

"GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF!" they both immediately regained their calm composure and relaxed a little more. Dylan got up out of the snow and breathed heavily for a little bit. He closed his eyes and walked forward towards the others and sighed.

"I'm sorry to have unloaded that on you guys… it's just," Dylan didn't know what to say, he expected someone to say something he could identify with, but didn't expect it to be from Shadow.

"Losing someone close to you is the hardest thing you a person can experience. You feel lost… weak… like nothing you do matters anymore. Even if you held the name of Ultimate Life Form, losing a friend and knowing there's nothing you can do… It's a horrible feeling," Dylan… smiled. He felt a connection between him and Shadow for the first time, and it didn't really feel bad, if anything it helped him a lot. Dylan shook Shadow's hand and said;

"Thanks Shadow," Shadow smiled back and shook his hand.

"Well this is really nice and everything but we kinda have a mission to do," Sonic said pointing North. Dylan put his smile back and and said;

"Yeah, let's do it to this!" they all nodded their heads in agreement and then bursted off for the North Pole once again. Sonic looked up at Dylan and saw him smiling again… but this time it was sincere.


	15. Chapter 15: Workshop Wonders

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 15

**Author's Note: Wow. 750 views. Wow. I didn't think I was that popular! I just wanna say, to everyone who reads and enjoys this story; Thank You!**

The fours heroes ran as quickly as possible to the North Pole with all the speed they could muster. After running through the white wastes of the frozen over Arctic Ocean for what seemed like forever they finally made it. Out in the distance they could see a red and white workshop, with glowing lights and what looked like a stable. Santa's Workshop. At the sight Sonic sped up in joy and excitement, going even faster than before. Silver caught sight of the place and sped up as well. Dylan, seeing everyone boost ran to catch up, only Shadow kept his speed at its current pace. Would he be welcomed, or not? Was he even on the nice list? He couldn't recall being really bad but still… he hadn't exactly been polite to people.

Dylan ran ahead of them all and spotted the force field around the workshop. It looked like a liquid clear dome around the workshop, Dylan passed right through the gel like barrier. Silver flew right behind him with Sonic on his tail. Shadow decided he didn't care if he made it inside or not, he didn't care if he was on the nice list or not, he decided that as long as he could ensure the safety of his one true friend, then he would do anything. He closed his eyes as he boosted up to the field and told himself;

"For Maria,"

…

Shadow passed right through just as easily as all the others and when he opened his eyes, he looked around, expecting anything. He saw elves greeting his friends who had stopped up ahead, just in front of the workshop. Dylan, Sonic and Silver all greeted the elves while Shadow stopped just behind them.

"Humph, I guess I am on the nice list," he thought. A small elf approached him and said;

"Wow! You're Shadow the Hedgehog?! Too cool!" he put his hand up for a high five. Shadow looked around and saw everyone looking at him expectedly. He sighed and looked down at the little guy, he knelt down and gave him a quick little high five. They elf giggled with glee and waddled over to the front door as everyone said; "Awwwww,"

Shadow shot a death glare at the three of them and said;

"Not a word to anyone," the hedgehogs and human nodded their heads simultaneously. The elf by the door put his hand on the handle and said;

"Mr. Clause wants to talk to you guys inside, c'mon!" he pulled the door open and the smell of candy canes and sawdust rushed out of the workshop, hitting them like a wall. Inside lots of elves could be seen working on toys, pounding their hammers and making toys for all the good little girls and boys. Down from a large staircase came the big man himself. In a large red suit, and his big red hat, Santa Clause was there in all his jolliness.

"Ho Ho Ho! Well if it isn't Sonic the Hedgehog!" he said merrily. Sonic gave him his wink and thumbs up.

"Long time no see Santa!" Santa giggled happily.

"Well please, come inside and out of the cold," he said. They walked in and the shop looked much larger. More elves working, more toys being made, and the smell of sawdust and candy canes was much stronger. They walked up the staircase and entered a door labeled; "S. Clause," Inside was a large glass window that allowed Santa to oversee the work of the elves, not like he ever needed to. They always got enough toys made before Christmas. Santa sat down in his chair and took two cookies and a glass of milk off the desk.

"So, what brings you boys up here?" he asked dipping a cookie into his milk and biting it. An elf walked up to Silver and took his backpack for him.

"Thank you," he said as it walked off with it. Dylan stepped forward.

"Well sir, we came to make sure everything was okay up here. We were afraid that Dr. Eggman would try something," Santa pulled at his beard for a moment and then snapped his fingers.

"Oh yes! I haven't seen that man since he kidnapped me and tried to destroy Christmas! Earning him a permanent spot on the naughty list!"

Sonic nodded his head in nostalgia.

"Ahh yes, Sonic Christmas Blast…" Both Sonic and Santa closed their eyes in memory until Silver said;

"Well I guess we should go now, I mean if everything's okay and all," Dylan looked over at Silver and nodded.

"He's right, if we don't need to be here then we should go,"

"Hang on Dylan," Shadow interrupted him. Dylan looked over to him.

"What if you need to stay here? What about you needing to fix a time interference?" Dylan remembered something important. He looked at his watch, it was already 10:17 P.M. they had travelled a long way. Just as Dylan was about to talk something completely unexpected happened. A sudden flash of white light was all that could be seen, a loud ringing noise could be heard and everyone felt very light. Almost as if they were all falling, Dylan hit the ground hard and slammed his eyes shut. Sonic, Shadow, Silver, and Santa all hit the floor as well, losing consciousness.

"W-what?" Dylan thought as his mind drifted off into a deep sleep.


	16. Chapter 16: Lost Faith Rekindled

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 16

I pushed the rubble off my body and saw my surroundings. The entire workshop had been destroyed. Elves were picking each other up of the ground and trying to heal each other. I looked around desperately for the hedgehogs and saw them helping Santa out of some rubble. I ran over and picked up the rubble off of him as Shadow and Sonic pulled him up.

(Perspective change)

"Ho, ho, (cough) oh…" Santa tried to say as his broken body was carried by our heroes to a table. They set him down gently as Silver limped over to them. Elves began to gather around the wounded Santa, with concerned looks on their faces. Such a joyous place was destroyed in no time, it was just… wrong. Some elves even started to cry watching Santa struggle to keep conscious. Smoke and dust occupied the area, it was musty and cold…

"Please… Sonic, everyone…" he said. Everyone leaned in to listen better.

"Save… Christmas…" he passed out. The elves scurried over to the table with medical equipment. They quickly injected him with fluids labeled; "Magic," and his wounds slowly healed up. All the elves breathed a sigh of relief. Santa was okay, and that was all that mattered to them. A small elf walked up to Dylan and held up some shredded teal material.

"It was a bomb," he said to him. Dylan recognized the material perfectly too, it was the same as Silver's backpack.

…

"I knew it!" Shadow jumped at him and pinned him on the ground, Silver struggled and panicked as Shadow began to beat silver one punch after another.

"I knew there was a reason I didn't like you!" he said with fury.

"Please stop! I don't know what you mean! Stop! STOP!" Dylan grabbed Shadows fist before he could make another punch and simply told Shadow; "Stop,"

Shadow stared at Dylan for a minute and then let Silver go. A moment of tension relief went by as everyone calmed down.

"Okay," Dylan started.

"Silver… did you know there was a bomb in your backpack?"

"Of course not!"

"LIAR!"

"He's not lying Shadow!"

"Oh really? What makes you so sure?"

"I can tell when he's lying, he has a tell," Shadow was silent.

"…What is it?" he asked.

"Whenever Silver lies he tries to act all cool, he would deny it once and then any further accusation would be ignored. Sonic never really lies to his friends, and when you lie Shadow, it's impossible to tell because you're always in that dark mood," No one spoke, it was all true, someone was a little too analytical.

"Silver, did you leave your backpack anywhere? And when was the last time you checked its contents?" Silver thought for a moment.

"Well… the last time I checked it was when you guys went on ahead of me leaving the hospital. There was no bomb, there was just some junk. I ran to catch up with you guys when I ran by a woman and her baby," This caught Dylan's attention.

"The woman and the baby, what happened when you ran by them?"

"Well, the kid threw his toy on the ground and I tripped and fell. My stuff fell out of my backpack and the lady helped my with them," he was ninety percent sure he knew what had happened, but just to be sure he kept pressing the story.

"The woman," Silver listened as intently as everyone else.

"Was she wearing a pink dress? Blonde hair, and was she pushing her kid in a stroller?" Silver was surprised.

"Yeah, that's right. Why?" It had been so obvious. If Eggmans plans had failed, then everyone would want to head to the north pole and investigate to make sure Santa was okay. So Eggman planted that bomb on Silver as a failsafe. He hoped to destroy the toys and Santa, and he succeeded. And to make things even more painful, all of this was done by them. They were pawns in Eggmans hands…

No.

"No," Dylan said. Everyone looked at him.

"No, there's no way Eggman is that smart," he began to say.

"Waddya mean Dylan?" Sonic asked.

"Eggman has never been this crafty, but a multi outcome plan like this is all too familiar to me, he's working with someone, someone really bad,"

"John right?" Sonic said. Dylan looked at him surprised, as well as everyone else.

"You told me that John gets to go 'Shock and Awe' on this world if evil wins, the perfect reason for him to work with Egghead," he smiled at Dylan.

"But it's not too late to save Christmas and foil Eggman's plans,"

"What do you mean Sonic?" everyone asked at once. He walked over to a pile of rubble and pulled off some old boards and found a hatch labeled; "Presents,"

"Last time I was here, I helped Santa construct a whole safety bunker to store the presents after they were made. So incase anything like this happened, the presents would be safe,"

"I get it," Shadow said.

"So then we can deliver them to everyone since Santa's out of commission, right?" Sonic nodded at him.

"Yes sir Shadow old buddy!" The plan was simple and the true enemy had been revealed, but there was still one flaw preventing Dylan from rekindling his faith in hope.

"What about the reindeer? They were injured too," Crud, he was right. Without reindeer they couldn't get the presents around the world, they were stuck.

"I don't know what to say there," Sonic said sadly. Dylan knew what to say though.

"I do," they looked to him with not much hope.

"We find a way to stop them!" he shouted, destroying the dark aura surrounding everyone.

"Sure the chips are down! Sure they've had a plan for everything so far! But Dammit if we give up then there's no hope left! Even if our chance for success is 0.1%, if we give up then that 0.1% chance becomes a solid zero! Now I'm not about to let that sociopath take over this world and destroy it! Now let me ask you guys something, do you ever wonder why we're here?"

No one spoke.

"It's one of life's great mysteries isn't it?" Silver said.

…

"No!" Dylan said.

"I mean why are you here. YOU specifically. Shadow, you could've left everyone anytime you wanted to, you know it and I know it, but you're still here. Silver! Blaze is in some other universe, and your future is restored, so why are you here? Sonic…"

"…"

"It's really good to know you're still here Sonic,"

"Thanks, I'm really loving this speech,"

Dylan resumed.

"Maybe you're all here because you want to be, maybe you're all here because you fit in here, or maybe your just here to save a friend, but for whatever reason you're still HERE,"

No one spoke, or even moved. Until Silver began to slowly clap his hands. Shadow joined in and Sonic did too until the entire area was filled with cheering elves. Dylan heard a loving voice whisper into his ears; 'You're inspiring,'

"Ho Ho Ho!" he heard Santa say. He sat up, still injured, but greatly less so.

"Rousing speech young man!"

"Thanks," he sighed. Santa put his game face on.

"Alright! Elves!" he said. The elves lined up like army troops.

"We need to make a vehicle that can let these four travel the world in one night!"

The all saluted simultaneously.

"Santa yes Santa!" their high voices all squeaked. They all salvaged tools and materials and got to work on building the vehicle in no time. Their faith restored, they were working faster than ever before.

"Three." Dylan said to Santa.

"Hmm? Three people. What about you?" he asked clutching his wounded side. Dylan turned and looked out in the distance, he concentrated hard and saw it, somewhere. John was preparing a large force of enemies to destroy this world.

"You have twelve hours," his words rang through Dylan's ears. He checked his watch; 11:49 P.M. Eleven minutes until the world went to hell.

"Sonic, Shadow, Silver," he said to them without turning. His brown eyes focused on his target miles away.

"Distribute the presents around the world, I guarantee John's troops won't interfere with you,"

"How do you know for sure?" Sonic asked.

"Easy," Dylan turned to him.

"Because there is no way in **HELL **I'm gonna let him hurt anyone here. That is a promise,"


	17. Chapter 17: Old Rivals Meet Again

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 17

John stood there, his dark black hair flowing in the cold wind. His red eyes focused on his target miles away, Dylan and friends.

"They know we know," he said back to Eggman. Aside from being crushed by a fifteen ton machine, Eggman was in pretty good shape. His head was bandaged and his glasses were a little cracked, but he was okay. Thanks to John anyway.

"Oh! Hohohohoho!" Eggman laughed maniacally.

"Soon that blasted hedgehog and his friends will cease to exist! And then we will destroy the surface of the planet, allowing for the creation of the glorious Eggman Empire!" he pounded his fist on the control board and laughed some more. Hundreds of thousands of Eggman robots gathered behind him.

John stood there with his own creations in tow. Hundreds of Robots and robot dogs, all of which looked oh too familiar. Shadow would've been able to recognize them in an instant after all. They were the ones from his nightmare. John was surprised for an instant when he saw his old nemesis approach. Dylan had run up to them so quickly it seemed as though he had no time to notice. Dylan stared at john with intensity, inside him was the kind of fury that is not human.

"Go," he said to Eggman.

"I'll take care of him," Eggman smiled and flew off ahead of John.

"Heh heh heh! Best of luck!" His Eggman robots flying after him. Dylan and John both looked off in the distance, watching Eggman get smaller and smaller until out of sight. They both turned back and looked at each other with great intensity. John merely held up his watch and pointed to it.

"12:00 A.M. Christmas Day, you're time is up," he said with a condescending smirk. Dylan looked down at the ground, not a single emotion showed on his face. John continued to speak.

"A shame! You could've done so much more if you had just been more useful! You could never help anyone avoid death! Not here, and especially not back home! That's why she died Dylan! She died because you couldn't protect her!" Tears welled up in his eyes and he began to choke. Dylan was being put through hell.

"You were a failure then and you're a failure NOW!" he snapped.

Dylan started to smile, then laugh a little. Something was gone, forever. Dylan lifted his head and his eyes were not focused on anything. He was purely deranged, nothing left in his body but an empty soul. A shell of a human, nothing but a tragedy waiting to be told through a million deaths. He was no more, only his power remained in a shell with the desire for revenge. He was gone.

John stopped a little. Dylan saw no one, just a living being, something he wanted to crush down. He had an inhuman look on his face, and he loved it. He loved looking at John as if he was the psycho, Dylan was done with time limits, he was done with everything involving limits. He was ready for destruction. Pure. Unadulterated. Destruction.

"Heh heh heh, do you think I give a crap about what time it is?" John stepped back for a second. What did he mean, was he going to defy the order of the U.S.B.? It wasn't done, ever. Dylan lifted his hand loosely, as if he was just a puppet being lifted by a string. He summoned his Caneblade and pointed it at John.

"I'm gonna tear you to shreds pretty boy!" he said with craziness in his mind. John was frightened, but ready to stop him. He pointed at Dylan and shouted;

"Kill him!" The robots all ran forward, but before it could even start, something happened, John looked around and they weren't moving, they stood there.

"what are you doing you nimrods? Get him!"

"…"

Nothing. Before John could speak he was interrupted by a cold and chilling voice, it spoke slowly and eerily.

"They can't hear you," he turned around to see Dylan floating there with his head tilted slightly to the side, with a horrifying smile on his face, and eyes wide as could be. John went pale with fear, what had he done. Had he pushed Dylan too far this time? What did he do? Dylan threw his Caneblade at John and John jumped to dodge, but he was slowed in mid jump. He was moving, just very slowly. As he slowly descended, Dylan slithered over next to him and said;

"I'm gonna make you pay John," with his crazy look. John panicked and started to flail around everywhere, trying to stop himself from landing where he knew he would land, right into the clutches of his insane enemy. Finally the inevitable occurred he landed and Dylan snatched him by the collar and looked him dead in the eyes.

"I'm gonna break you,"

John felt everything sear up in pain after that. Nothing felt normal, everything felt bent and broken. Nothing was peaceful anymore, he felt only pain, just like Dylan. He fell to the ground and everything was normal again. Dylan stood there, looking down at his enemy on the ground. The robots were inactive, as if they had been hit by and E.M.P. Dylan collapsed to the ground, exhausted.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooo

He woke up in a world made of pure white. He looked around and at himself, he wore his normal clothes, except there were entirely white. He also saw something incredible. Walking towards him in a flowing white dress was his beauty, Becca. Blonde hair, green eyes and all. He was at a loss for words for how overjoyed he was.

"Becca… you're,"

"No," she spoke like an angel.

"You're not dead, and I'm not alive. We're in between. This merely your subconscious,"

"So then you're just my memory of you?" she nodded.

"Yup," she was still gone, and it was his fault.

"No it isn't, it was never you're fault," she said.

"Yes it is! I'm the reason why you're dead!" she walked up to him and put her hand up to his face.

"John let me die, you did everything you could to protect me always," he clutched his head in sorrow and confusion.

"Why do I…" She put her finger to his lips and shushed him.

"I know what you know, everything you know. So I understand," he looked at her desperately. He held her hand to his face and closed his eyes, he never wanted to leave. He wanted to stay there with her, and live the life they had always dreamed of living, but he couldn't. Deep down he knew that, he knew he would never be able to and it tore him apart, especially since it was all his fault and she knew it. She stepped back and started to slowly, fade.

"NO! Don't leave!" he begged her. He tried to grab her but she was intangible, he passed right through her. He looked her in the eyes as she continued to fade.

"Never forget who you are, and what you stand for. For me," she faded, gone once again. He stood there in confusion and fear. Desperate to understand how she could forgive him for what he had done, for letting her perish. Why? Why did she still love him? Why did she care so much for a man who had betrayed her and cost her, her life. He shouted to the sky in confusion and rage;

"**WHY?!"**

Everything faded out again, he was back in his body once again, she had helped restore his sanity and somehow, John had managed to escape despite his various mortal wounds. He looked around and closed his eyes, the confusion went away, he felt clarity. She was his clarity, she was his everything, and he had to learn to live without her, or live as an insane killer. He would suffer the same fate as John, he would suffer the same fate as himself.

"Sonic, Shadow, Silver," he said to himself.

"Best of Luck,"


	18. Chapter 18: Shadow's Christmas Present

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 18

**Author's Note: I'm back and better than ever! School's been pretty taxing and life in general's been a bit rough recently but I've gotten through it and I'm ready to finish this up! Hope you guys are as excited for this chapter as I am because writing it was difficult! Enjoy!**

Sonic, Shadow, and Silver helped load the presents out of the bunker while Santa watched and ate a few cookies with some milk while leading an elf choir in Christmas Carols, meanwhile several other elves worked on the new makeshift sleigh. The highlight of the evening was when Silver played a Christmas remix of 'Stereo Hearts,' everyone singing and jumping around while working together, it was the very essence of Christmas spirit.

Finally the sleigh was finished at last. A small elf pulled a curtain off the sleigh and the design was very familiar. It was the design of the cars from 'Sonic Heroes,' one driver, one person would do a spin dash as the front wheel, and one person used their flight to hold the car up off the ground. The only design difference was the sides had wings. Shadow quickly hopped in the driver seat after saying right in Silver's face; "SHOTGUN!"

Silver frowned and got on the flight end while Sonic just hopped onto the front and got ready to spin dash.

"Thanks for your help everyone!" All the elves cheered and whistled hoping they would have a safe trip. Sonic looked back at the others and nodded his head, Silver nodded back while Shadow gave him a thumbs up. Sonic looked forward with great determination and then… SPIN DASH!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

Sonic and friends burst out of the toyshop with all the presents in tow. Shadow looked to his computer device in the driver seat and an aiming mechanism and G.P.S. pulled up on the screen. They all soared through the wonderful winter night sky, the wind and snow rushing past them. The skies of the north pole were lit up with the celestial lights, the three hedgehogs were so high it was like the lights were other sleighs flying right next to them.

"First stop, Greenland," Shadow said.

"Alrighty then," Sonic said, he stopped spin dashing when they were high enough.

"Yeah! Let's do it! Lets save Christmas!" Silver shouted. They soared off ready to deliver the presents, hopefully it wouldn't be too long of a night.

Hours had gone by since they started to deliver the presents and they were all getting a bit exhausted. Sonic rested on his guard rail and almost fell asleep. Silver's arm were tired from holding up the sleigh for so long, and Shadow's eyes were getting red from staring at the G.P.S. for so long.

"Last stop at long last," Shadow said waking up Sonic.

"Oh Thank Goodness!" Silver exclaimed. Their final destination was their home, Station Square. They went from house to house in just a couple of minutes and before they knew it they were down to one last present. They lowered down the sleigh and landed it on the beach. Sonic fell off the guard rail and relaxed on the sand, breathing smoothly for the first time in a while. Silver slowly floated away from the car until his psychokenesis gave out and he fell to the ground, welcoming the soft sand like a blanket. Shadow hopped out of the sleigh and ran to the water, he dipped his hand in the water and flicked it into his eyes, he didn't care if it was salt water, it felt good on his red eyes. He blinked a few times and then turned back to look at his exhausted companions, they were both practically asleep.

He grabbed the last present out of the back of the sleigh and checked the tag.

"Humph, guess I'll deliver this one on foot," he said to himself. The tag read;

"To Sonic, Shadow, and Silver. Thank you all and have a Merry Christmas! From Santa Claus! Ho Ho Ho!" Shadow was about to open the present when he heard a noise. He turned around and saw none other than Dr. Eggman. His large robot had snatched up the other two hedgehogs who were too tired to even retaliate. The Robot also bore a great resemblance to the 'Death Egg Robot,'

"Ho! Ho ho ho ho ho ho! So Shadow, are you ready to perish? Because when you're finished, these two will die and the Eggman Empire will rise!" Eggman's robot pointed a gun at Shadow's head and the barrel spun, ready to fire. Shadow looked at the present and wondered…

"Doctor, don't I get a last request?" Eggman shouted annoyed.

"Fine! But make it quick!" Shadow held up his present and said;

"I want to open my last Christmas Present,"

"You have one minute," Shadow nodded and unwrapped the box and opened the lid. He couldn't believe his eyes.

In that box… in his hands… were all Seven Chaos Emeralds.

"Time's up Shadow the Hedgehog," he said aiming the gun at Shadow once again. Shadow looked right at the doctor.

"You're right, time is up Doctor," Shadow grabbed a single emerald quickly and used Chaos Teleport to escape. He teleported right above Eggman's cockpit.

"For YOU!" He pounded his feet down on the glass and damaged the robot greatly to the point where the power began to flicker. The arms holding Sonic and Silver twitched and released them, they fell to the ground once again, both of them nearly unconscious. Shadow jumped off the glass and landed right next to them, grabbing Silver and Sonic quickly while the emeralds floated out of the box and began to surround them. Eggman saw the emeralds and this time he was furious.

"You meddling hedgehogs! DIE!" he smashed a red button on his dashboard and tons of guns and rocket launchers popped out of the side of the robot and aimed at the three heroes. They fired, rockets, bullets, grenades, explosives, acid, whatever Eggman could fire he shot straight at them.

BOOM BANG BOOM BANG SIZZLE KABOOM BAM BOP BOOM POW!

A large cloud of smoke surround them, and once it cleared it was plain to see, there was nothing left there but a crater of sand and char.

"I… I did it," Eggman looked down at the few remains of his adversaries and let the reality of it set in.

"I WON! HAH HAH!" the thrilled doctor did a little victory cheer in his chair and laughed. That's when a bright light got in his eyes, at first he thought it was the moon but when he looked harder he noticed it was something else, someone else. Descending from the sky came three super powered hedgehogs, each one a different shade of burning yellow. Eggman stared in utter disbelief, which didn't last long. In pure anger and frustration he slammed down on every button he could find, and dispatched every robot he could. They came from everywhere and attacked relentlessly. The trio flew away and into the city to escape.

The robots tailed them and tried to destroy them but in the end they were no match for them. Silver used his advanced psychokenesis to blow back tons of robots and knock away any ones that got near him. Shadow used his Chaos Spears and Chaos Control to destroy hoards of them all at once. Sonic used his ultimate speed the run right through miles of robots, dodge their rockets and bullets, and even land a kick-ass explosion or two. Once all the robots had been dealt with they flew back to the beach, where they knew Eggman was waiting.

Eggman waited there and as soon as they landed in front of him he cracked an evil grin.

"Eggman! Give up We've beaten all your robots! You can't hope to defeat us!" Sonic said.

"That's where you're wrong hedgehog," he said menacingly.

"You see as I said before I learn from my mistakes. I've learned that I can never defeat you while you have the power of Chaos on your side… However… I DON'T HAVE TO!" With the push of a button the container on the back of the Death Egg Robot that looked like a back pack changed. The metal armor slid down to reveal it as a prison cell, and the prisoner shocked them all.

"Maria?" shadow said trying to believe it. He didn't think the doctor would put her in harm's way. What if they attacked the robot? What if it exploded when he hit it?

"Now…" the doctor said with a crooked smile. Some part of Sonic knew he didn't want to do this, but he had no other choice. Sonic grabbed Silver and quickly closed his eyes, the glowing yellow faded from the both of them leaving them back to their normal states once again.

"Now nothing Egghead! When we're not in our Super Forms we're useless to you!" Eggman's face turned worried, but then turned back to evil once again after realizing something, he even began to laugh.

"What's so funny Eggman?" Silver asked.

"What's so funny is I don't need either of you! The one person I really need is still in his Super Form!" They all looked to Shadow who clenched his fist. He looked at Maria through the glass of the cell, it was just like how she looked back on the Ark, only she was the one locked up.

"Don't listen to him Shadow! He's just trying to mess with you! He'd never hurt me! I'll be okay!" she kept saying to him, but it fell on deaf ears, he was too busy being caught between two serious decisions. Turn back to normal and risk Maria's life again, or do what Eggman wants and guarantee her safety.

"Shadow…" Sonic said warily.

"I really must thank you Sonic and silver, if you didn't change back to normal you would've stood a chance against Shadow! Thank You for making this much easier!"

"C'mon Shadow… change back… please?" Silver asked. Shadow clenched his fist tighter, the decision was killing him, tearing him apart.

"Shadow…" Shadow looked up with an intense glare, Eggman looked him dead in the eye.

"You know what you must do," Shadow released his fist and slowly turned around, facing Sonic and Silver.

"Shadow?" Sonic asked again. Shadow looked at him with anger and rage. Eggman cracked a cruel smile.

"Hmm, good choice Shadow. Now Shadow…" he said as if ordering around a lackey. He turned back and looked Eggman dead in the eye, Eggman smiled back with great evil on his face.

"Kill Sonic and Silver," Shadow looked back at the two Hedgehogs and smiled faintly. His ultimate power rising immensely, he slowly moved his hands up to his inhibitor rings and clicked them both off one by one. When they fell to the ground Shadow's true power was unleashed. A dark crimson red and burning intense yellow power surrounded him and his eyes turned from red to entirely glowing red like a demon. No... not a demon, the Ultimate Life Form. When he spoke it was like another creature spoke with him.

"Of course… Dr. Eggman,"


	19. Chapter 19: Shadow Saves Them All!

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 19

**The Big Finale!**

Shadow flew straight at Sonic and tried to punch him in the gut, but Sonic jumped out of the way just in time. Silver panicked and flew out of the way too. Shadow looked back at Sonic with soulless dead eyes, his true power was unleashed at long last and he was ready to raise some hell. He smiled the smile of a crazy man and said;

"Lets see whose stronger once and for all faker," Sonic smiled and ran at Shadow ready to fight. Shadow flicked his wrist forward and ten chaos spears flew forward without any charge time, they also looked ten times deadlier than his usual ones! Sonic rolled out of the way of them, barely missing them and used a homing attack on Shadow hitting him dead on. Shadow didn't move, Sonic back flipped and landed on the ground looking up expecting Shadow to be sent flying, but he was standing right there, unharmed.

"You don't get it yet do you Sonic?" he put his hand behind his back and without even looking used a large chaos beam to completely vaporize a large pile of rubble Silver had thrown at him. The pile was easily the size of a small meteor.

"CRAP!" Silver shouted in fear from a distance.

"I've reached my highest form Sonic," Sonic's usual look of cockiness and confidence turned to one of worry. He had never seen Shadow use his full power, at least not in fighting, it had been used once at the end of the Sonic Adventure 2 story, but that was it. He drained all his power in one shot back then, Sonic could only imagine what kind of power he had now that he could use it in small bursts.

"CHAOS CONTROL!" he shouted. Shadow flickered from in front of Sonic to standing behind him, and he snapped his fingers. Using Chaos control he could slow down time to a grinding halt and pummeled Sonic. When he snapped his fingers Sonic felt excruciating pain all over his body and was sent flying across the beach. Eggman laughed in his robot, watching the fight around him like a movie.

"This is wonderful! At this rate my plans will come to fruition in no time!" He looked over at Shadow and could only imagine the kind of power he had control over right now. He could use Chaos Control without any emeralds in this form, that was already a huge step up.

"Shadow, go handle Silver, I'll take down Sonic myself,"

"And then you'll let Maria go… correct Doctor…" Eggman put on a menacing grin.

"Of course Shadow," Shadow nodded back at Eggman and flew in the direction of Silver at incredible speeds. His crimson and golden aura shining brighter and with even more intensity. Silver saw Shadow incoming and decided to book it out of there, he jumped up to fly, only for Shadow to grab his leg and throw him to the ground. Silver crawled to his feet and looked in utter fear at Shadow, who only stared at his prey, sizing him up. Silver gripped his shoulder and desperately tried to reason with Shadow.

"Shadow… please don't do this… You're better than this…" Shadow flew forward and punched Silver's chest, pounding him into the ground. Silver turned over and gripped his chest, trying to breath better and thought of a quick way out. He grabbed some sand in his hand and quickly turned back over throwing it into Shadow's eyes. Shadow stumbled back not expecting a cheap shot like that. He rubbed his eyes and fired several chaos spears where Silver would've been. Silver quickly got up before Shadow made the shots and flew out to the sea, trying to lose him in the light of the full moon.

Shadow got the sand out of his eyes and looked around trying to find Silver, he spotted him flying out to sea and looked at him with anger and malice. He closed his eyes and thought to himself;

"Why couldn't you just make this easy?" He flew out to sea and caught up with Silver instantly. Shadow stopped right in front of Silver, who stopped before bumping into Shadow. Silver tried to fly in a different direction but was only stopped in the same way once again. He kept on trying but met with no luck. Finally he stopped mid flight and used his psychokinetic powers. He grabbed anything in a small range field, which was luckily Shadow and pushed him downwards to the ocean. Shadow splashed into the water and hit it as hard as gravel.

Silver looked down at Shadow relieved he had stopped him for a moment. Then it happened. Shadow burst out of the water, flew right up to Silver and grabbed his head. He looked at Silver with more anger and hatred than he had ever felt before. Silver looked back to afraid to even speak, just looking at Shadow and what he had become was a horror story in its own right. Shadow spoke;

"Drown in despair," he forced Silver down to the ocean and pushed his entire body under. He kept his hand firmly on Silver's head to make sure he stayed under, trying to crack the poor hedgehogs skull as he held him. Silver flailed about underwater trying desperately to find a way back to the surface but was met with nothing. As he looked down at the darkness of the ocean he wondered if that was it, if he would die there, he couldn't use his psychokenesis, he was too weak, and he was running out of breath all too quickly. The flailing lessened and lessened to the point of Silver lacking any kind of real movement whatsoever.

But just before Silver had left them all for good, a golden weapon smashed into Shadow's back and sent him fly through the air. Dylan sheathed his blade and pulled Silver out of the water, he carried Silver on his back running across the water to the beach. He dropped Silver on the sand and pressed down on his stomach hard. Silver coughed up the water in his lungs in a few seconds and regained consciousness.

"You okay?" Dylan asked in a worried tone.

"Dylan! You saved my life!" Silver said.

"Yeah yeah, it's kinda what I do around here…" he responded scratching the back of his head. Shadow flew back and landed on the beach looking at Silver and now sizing up… Dylan?

"So you've returned to help them have you?" Shadow asked.

"Shadow…" Dylan tried to talk to Shadow rather than the power crazed creature in Shadow's body.

"Think, if you do this, do you really think Eggman will let Maria go?" Shadow wasn't about to hear it. He rushed forward and tried to punch Dylan, only to miss as Dylan jumped into the air. Shadow fired dozens of Chaos spears at Dylan as he descended, only for Dylan to dodge them all as he spoke.

"He'll never let her go so long as he can use her as a tool to get you to do what he wants!"

"SHUT UP!" Shadow shouted in fury. He snapped his fingers and a large explosion occurred right in front of Dylan, who used his Caneblade to absorb the force of the blast.

"Eggman's never been true to his word! You know that!"

'I DON'T CARE!" Shadow shouted again trying to blast his foe out of the sky. Dylan charged his weapon performed a horizontal slice with his sword, only for the beam to fly toward Shadow. Shadow nimbly dogged out of the way and tried to hit Dylan with another barrage of Chaos Spears.

"I will do whatever it takes to protect Maria! **WHATEVER IT TAKES!" **Shadow screamed using a Chaos Blast attack that could easily level a building. Dylan quickly hit the sand and jumped as high as he could to avoid the blast but didn't jump high enough, as it hit him like a solid wall. Dylan hit the ground and cringed in pain as Shadow slowly walked up to him, a Chaos bomb ready to blow and prepared in his hand. He pointed it at Dylan, ready to kill. Dylan looked up at Shadow panting, this was it… all or nothing.

"And should he ever let her go… she won't see you… she'll see a merciless killing machine instead of the sweet hedgehog she fell in love with…" Shadow stepped back. He… he was right. He looked down at the ocean water and couldn't even recognize himself. He didn't see a calm cool and collected black and red hedgehog, but instead a golden crimson… monster with soul less dead eyes. He clenched his fists in rage, but released them and calmed down. He let the power of the Chaos Emeralds leave his body and he changed back to normal.

"…I'm sorry…" Shadow said looking down at the sand. Dylan walked up to him and pulled out his Inhibitor Rings.

"It's not too late to stop him Shadow," Dylan said with a friendly look. He couldn't believe it, even after everything he'd done he was still willing to forgive Shadow… he was sincerely touched for the first time in his life. He took the rings and placed them back on his wrists where they belonged and smiled back at his companion.

"Let's go save the world Shadow the Hedgehog," Dylan said.

"Sounds like fun,"

They both bolted for it, head to the other side of the beach where Sonic was fighting Eggman. They had moved off the beach and to the large grassy cliff next to it. Sonic ran up to the top of the light house on top of it and dodged rockets fired at him by Eggman.

"What's wrong egghead? Having trouble aiming?" he said tauntingly.

Eggman pounded the control board enraged.

"Where is Shadow? He should've finished off Silver by now, so what's keeping him?" Sonic jumped off the light house dodging a few more rockets and ran to the edge of the cliff. Eggman jumped over the lighthouse and landed right behind Sonic, aiming all his weapons at Sonic all at once.

"Gotcha you filthy hedgehog!" Sonic looked back and smiled. He jumped out of the way of the rockets at the last minute and landed on the other side of the robot. The rockets exploded blowing up the edge of the cliff, making the entire thing collapse, with Eggman right there to fall through it. Eggman's robot grabbed the edge of what was left of the cliff and held on for dear life, as the arm began to slowly malfunction and break. Maria hit the back of the containment chamber and looked down at the ocean waves hitting up against the cliff bottom. Sonic ran forward to jump onto the robot and break her out, but Eggman was quick. He pressed a button and one last rocket flew forward and blasted the hedgehog high into the sky, so far out of sight he disappeared into the sky like a star.

Dylan and Shadow saw the whole event go down and they were almost there to help when the robot grabbed the edge of the cliff and Sonic was blown into the sky.

"Maria!" Shadow shouted.

"I'll get Sonic! You help Maria!" Dylan activated his jetpack and grabbed Shadow helping lift him to the cliff. He dropped Shadow off and flew up to help Sonic and was out of sight in an instant. Shadow ran as fast as he could to the robot, Eggman had broken out of the cockpit and was climbing up the edge of the robot and had almost cleared it, until he slipped and fell, and as he fell down to the sea you could hear him shout;

"I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!" SPLASH! Meanwhile Maria had broken out of her containment chamber and climbing up to the edge as well. The robot arm was holding up the rest of it by some thick wire and not much else. Shadow was so close to the arm and saw Maria trying to climb to the top and he shouted to her;

"Maria!" she looked at him and shouted;

"Shadow!" As the arm gave away and she fell, just out of grip of Shadow who dove to save her. He buried his face in the grass and screamed;

"MARIA!"

He had lost. He failed once again to protect her. He was useless… no. Less than useless. He was worse than a sad excuse for a living being he wasn't deserving of the title of ultimate life form, he wasn't deserving of anything anymore. He let her die, he was nothing without her… he was just a Shadow of a creation.

He gripped the grass, crying and sobbing and tearing up. Dylan flew back down from the sky with Sonic in his arms and landed behind Shadow, both of them unaware of the tragedy that occurred there.

"Whew! That was close! I gotta admit, for a minute there I thought Egghead had me there!" Sonic said.

"Yeah well. He didn't count on me coming to the rescue, right Shadow!" Dylan said. Shadow didn't bother to look back, he just kept crying.

"Shadow…" Dylan asked.

"Where's Maria?" Shadow grabbed his head in fury and sorrow and screamed in absolute pain. She was gone, and it was his fault. He could've stopped Eggman, he could've turned back to normal back then. He could've done more, somehow, somewhere… he knew if he had just tried a little more he could've saved her. Dylan looked at the ground and clenched his fist in anger.

"That's not right… It's just not right," Dylan said knowing now what happened. Sonic looked at Shadow in a very sympathetic way and said;

"Shadow… I'm sorry,"

"NO!" Shadow shouted.

"You're not SORRY! You didn't love her! She wasn't everything to YOU! I…. I…. **I LOVED HER!" **he screamed. The mood was dark and silent, that is until a miracle happened, something no one had expected… something so wonderful, when Shadow looked up to see it he himself was mesmerized by disbelief.

There, floating over the edge of the Cliff was Silver, carrying Maria using his psychokenesis.

"And… Silver saves the day," he said proudly placing her down on the ground. Dylan looked at Silver surprised.

"Wow… I didn't see that coming," Dylan clapped his hands legitimately impressed by Silver's actions.

"Alright way to go Silver!" Sonic said jumping up and down applauding.

Maria ran to Shadow who got up and ran back with tears of joy in his eyes.

"Shadow!" she said in joy and relief.

"Maria!" he shouted back in joy and relief. He caught up to her and hugged her tight. It felt so good to hold her once again, the way she smelled like blooming flowers was a smell he thought he would never experience again, and to hold her in his arms once again was so joyous, he thought never wanted to let her go. For her, to feel him once again, to know that he wasn't sad, was the greatest feeling of all. Sonic looked over at Dylan and said;

"Now this is lovely," Sonic looked to see Dylan had mysteriously vanished, and wasn't anywhere nearby! It was like he had up left them without a word.

Shadow looked into Maria's cute blue eyes and said;

"Maria… I… love you," she looked back at him and said;

"I love you too Shadow the Hedgehog," He pulled her in and kissed her right there in the glimmering moonlight of the Christmas morning and it was the most wonderful thing either of them had ever done. Their passion and love for each other had been laid out right there and then, and it was wonderful.

Meanwhile Dylan stood on top of the light house with a very angry Eggman tied up next to him. Oddly enough though, Eggman wasn't fidgeting around, it was more like he couldn't understand something and was thinking very hard about it.

"Now that's what I call a happy ending," Dylan said.

"Mission Accomplished,"

"There's one thing I don't understand," Eggman interrupted.

"Why did you save me? Because you did, I'll live to scheme another day, and you're always foiling my plots anyway! So why did you do it?"

Dylan smiled to himself.

"It's because the hero needs a villain in every world. No matter where you go, there's always a hero and a villain, if you were to die, then Sonic would have no enemy. Peace would reign forever, my role is to ensure nobody dies yet and that the cycle of good versus evil goes on until 'it' happens,"

"What's 'it'?" Dylan opened his eyes suddenly to a quick realization and stopped himself.

"I've said too much already. All you need to know is, Sonic will always be the hero and you will always be the villain. Whoever wins the final conflict all depends on you guys," Eggman looked down at the ground and sadly began to speak.

"You know, I didn't want to be the villain," Dylan looked back again. That's two big surprises in one day, he was on the verge of a personal record.

"When I was a kid I remembered reading comic books about my favorite heroes… The Avengers," Dylan was fascinated by the story.

"Thor was a god and incredibly powerful, The Hulk was strong and strong tempered, Iron Man was a genius and an expert at crafting robots, and Captain America was a strong and brave leader. I wanted to be just like them when I was young, but I never got that chance. Instead I could only use my genius for evil… and then that annoying hedgehog came along and… well the rest is history," Dylan couldn't believe it, but he actually pitied the good doctor. He sighed and put his hand to his forehead and spoke.

"You know…" Eggman looked up to listen.

"I think I'll take you back to your base, no charge whatsoever," Eggman looked back at the ground and said;

"Thanks," Dylan grabbed Eggman by the rope he tied him up with and flew back into the direction of the base. He looked back one last time at his favorite hedgehog's and said to himself.

"Congratulations everyone, Shadow Saves Them All,"


	20. Chapter 20: Farewell to Friends and Foes

Shadow Saves Them All

Chapter 20

After saving Christmas and stopping Dr. Eggman's plans, the three hedgehog heroes, and Dylan, stopped off at Cream's house, with Maria too of course. Dylan dropped Eggman off at his lair and then met them there. All the lights were off except the front stoop light. The five of them stopped in front of her door and Dylan spoke.

"Well, that was one way to spend a Christmas vacation! I really can't wait to get some sleep and…" Dylan opened the door and was interrupted by a loud noisemaker blown in his face, and the sound of countless other people shouting;

"Merry Christmas!" Dylan looked inside and saw everyone was there! Vector, Charmy, Espio, Cream, Cheese, Vanilla, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Omega, Blaze, Marine, and even Big was there with Froggy! And of course Amy was waiting for Sonic, jumping up and down with joy at the sight of him. Dylan turned around and looked at the four hedgehogs and asked;

"Did you know?" he smiled.

"Of course we knew! It was a secret until Knuckle head almost spilled it earlier today!" Sonic said. Knuckles looked away with a humph. Dylan smiled a very warm smile, he walked in and was amazed, they had redecorated the house for the party, and even made a cake that said; "Welcome Back Dylan!" he looked around at the smiling faces all around them, and remembered all the times he had helped them.

"I wouldn't trade you guys for anything," he said, beginning to get chocked up. That's when he had an epiphany. He had spent so much of his time being depressed and upset and scared because of Becca's death, but that's when he realized, he still had so much left here. He had saved the three hedgehog heroes, helped everyone in this room countless times and loved to be around all of them.

"Wait a minute… I wouldn't trade you guys for anything!" he shouted. The bright colors, and everyone being there for him just like he was always there for them. It made him feel… happy. He closed his eyes and the image of her slowly faded away… he was finally at peace, but for real this time. He opened his eyes and with tears flowing down his face said;

"Thanks guys,"

"Oh! Group hug!" Vector shouted. Everyone gathered around Dylan and began to hug each other, nearly suffocating him in the process. Everyone was hugging of course, except for Shadow who took the opportunity to sneak onto the roof. He stood there and just stared at the full moon intently, like he was trying to figure out what to do next. Maria came up the stairs behind him and closed the door. Shadow turned around and felt his face turn a slight red. Her eyes glistened in the moonlight, which reflected beautifully off her teal blue dress as she walked towards him. He almost stumbled back a little, dazzled by the sight of her.

"Shadow, I want to ask you something important," Shadow calmly regained himself and folded his arms. He closed his eyes and tilted his head down slightly asking;

"What is it?"

"Why did you attack Sonic and Silver like that?"

Shadow's eyes snapped open and he assumed a defensive stance. What kind of question was that?

"What? What do you mean? Eggman threatened to kill you! What was I supposed to do?"

"Shadow, you know Julian would never hurt me… so why did you do it?" Shadow looked down at the ground and clenched his fists tightly.

"I… I…" Maria walked up to him and and took his hand. He at her and she asked;

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to risk it! I didn't want to even risk the chance of Eggman hurting you! I couldn't…"

"You couldn't what?"

"I couldn't lose you," She picked up his head and they looked each other in the eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere Shadow, you won't lose me," He grabbed her hands and fell to his knees.

"Maria," he said as tears rolled down his face. She knelt down to meet him.

"Shadow, you don't need to cry, I'm here," they looked each other in the eyes once again and they kissed once again. His tortured soul was lacking one thing, a person to truly care about and love, and that was her. He needed her, he loved her, and she loved him.

"It's likely that… you'll get kidnapped by him again though," he said warningly. She smiled back and said;

"I'll be alright, he can't always succeed," He pulled her in close hugging her, he would always want to be with her, and with her… he was happy.

"Now, please come back down to the party, everyone wants to see you,"

"Okay Maria, for you," They held hands and walked to the door leading down to the party. Shadow looked back one last time and saw the image of himself, the dark and evil hedgehog he once was, and he merely turned back around walking away.

"It's time to forget the past," he said.

He walked down to the party with Maria and everyone was abuzz with energy. Charmy was cheering Vector on in an eggnog drinking contest against Knuckles. They chugged down three gallons of the stuff before knuckles slammed the counter and laid his head down on it, unable to drink anymore, while Vector just got dizzy and slammed his head on the counter on his way down to the floor, making Charmy laugh uncontrollably. Rouge stood at the other end of the counter, downing her fourth gallon and placed the bottle down, wiping off her mouth with a napkin, the obvious winner.

Vanilla was trying to wake Vector up from passing out by splashing cold water on his face, which worked. Tails was chatting with Sonic asking him a million questions about their adventure to the north pole. Silver was sitting on the couch talking to Blaze and Marine about his time too, explaining the several bandages on his head and arms. Luckily it didn't hurt too much. Omega was oddly enough watching Dylan alongside Cream and Cheese as he told a kid friendly version of their great adventure. He was talking in a loud theatrical voice and even jumped around, trying to replicate bits and pieces of the adventure right there and then. At the end of the great tale Dylan snapped his fingers and said;

"Oh snap! I almost forgot something important!" he ran out of the door and came back a second later with a large sack of gifts, put it down on the kitchen table and everyone rushed in to see what it was. Dylan pulled them out one at a time and handed them out, there was something there for everyone!

Tail's got a new tool kit, Knuckles got some gloves that wouldn't tear or break if he tried punching with them. Rouge got a box of jewels, (what else?) and Omega got a year's supply of oil. Blaze received a pair of earrings which had real lava flowing through them, and Marine got a snow ball cannon which could fire snowballs at top speed. Vector got a new pair of 'Beats' headphones, Espio received a Ninja weapon sharpening kit, and Charmy got a card that gave him a 50% discount at the local candy store… FOR LIFE. Big and Froggy got a new fishing pole named; "The Tadpole,"… Get it? Finally Silver got something special. Dylan pulled this gift out of his pocket and placed it in Silvers hands, it was a small necklace… a locket maybe?

Silver clicked it open and was surprised at what he saw. It was a picture of a mother and father hedgehog holding their little boy in their arms. It was… him.

"How… how did you get this? Where did you get this from?" he asked taken aback.

"I've got ways my friend," Dylan said.

"They cared about you a lot you know, enough to give their lives to protect you," he stared at the locket and tried to bring back any kind of memory of them, but no such memory appeared to him.

"I… I don't know what to say,"

"Say thanks! That wasn't easy to find I'll tell you that! It was buried under tons of rubble! I spent fifteen days looking for it!"

"Thanks Dylan," he smiled at Silver.

"You're welcome buddy!" Dylan walked over to Sonic and handed him a new pair of shoes, they looked like the ones he wore back in the days of the Genesis, only better.

"They're designed to be able to resist tons of friction and resist all of the elements, like water, rocks, etc,"

Wow! Thanks Dylan!" he said putting them on slipping off his old shoes. Dylan quickly slipped over next to Amy and gave her a GPS and said;

"There's a chip in the shoes," she giggled with glee and thanked him, and he slipped right back to where he was before. Sonic stood up and moved around a bit in the new shoes, breaking them in.

"They feel great! This is awesome!"

"You're welcome my fast friend," Dylan left Sonic to work with the shoes and walked over to the happy couple of Maria and Shadow who set themselves down on a sofa in the living room. Dylan sat down with two boxes in his hands. He gave one to Maria and the other to Shadow saying;

"Merry Christmas to the happy couple," Maria smiled politely and said;

"Thank you Dylan,"

"Thanks Dylan," Shadow said. Maria opened her present and it looked like a small red bullet shell with a button on it.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Well since Egghead likes to use you as a bargaining tool I figured I'd give you something to stop him, that's a re-usable EMP. It's set to deactivate only Eggman robots and other things made by him. So if you ever find yourself trapped, you can use it to open doors, de-activate machines, etc,"

"Wow thanks!"

"You couldn't have given that to her before!?" Shadow shouted in rage.

"Geez! Shadow, it wasn't Christmas before! What was I gonna say to her when I first got here? Merry Wednesday?" Maria giggled a little and Shadow sighed sitting back down and opening up his present. He was a bit puzzled at the gift.

"Are these… Inhibitor Rings?"

"Yep, I made em myself, they're specially designed so you can unleash your true power and reseal it whenever you want to without having to take them off," He looked down at his wrists and timed himself, he quickly clicked off his Inhibitor Rings and Clicked on the new ones before anything could happen. They looked the same as his regular ones.

"Thanks Dylan,"

"Hey it's what I'm here for!" they all smiled.

"And who knows? Maybe the next time you use these, Shadow will be saving the day again!" they all shared a laugh and the screen turned off.

"Well," Alice said turning in her chair.

"There you have it, the mission was a success using only the peace agent, Thus proving my point that Military Agents are not needed!" A grey haired man stood in the room with her and thought to himself.

"Alright then, this is new and unusual but nonetheless I am a man of my word, we will suspend the Military Agents for now," Alice sighed in relief.

"Well done Dylan, well done,"

**Epilogue**

Everyone at the party enjoyed themselves very much and loved the gifts they had received. After it, everyone went back to living their normal lives and met up again a few short days later for a New Year's Party. After that party Dylan sadly had to depart for his home. Many people were sad to see him go, but he insisted he'd be back again for Valentine's day. He said his goodbyes and everyone waved at him seeing him off.

Meanwhile back at Eggman's base on Christmas morning, he had just gotten out of being tied up and walked to his entertainment room.

"Well I guess I'll go sit down on my lumpy couch and watch some football," he said to himself.

"OOOHHH! Can I join you Dr. Eggman?" Bokkun asked with glee.

"Sure Bokkun, whatever," he opened the door to his entertainment quarters and was amazed at the sight. He had a brand new couch, coffee table, surround sound stereo, Satellite T.V. box, Blu-Ray D.V.D player, Xbox 360, and PS3 all installed on a large 64 inch T.V. With 3D glasses. On the table, amongst many of Eggman's favorite snacks was a calling card. It had the Caneblade symbol on it with Dylan's signature saying;

"Turn it on Super hero," Eggman clicked the play button the remote and a movie began to play… it was 'The Avengers,' Eggman smiled and almost cried. No one had ever given him a Christmas gift before in his life, and Dylan was so generous as to give him all THIS!

"Thanks… Hero," Eggman said looking up at the sky, wondering where amongst the stars their hero was… one day he would tell them, but that day was not gonna happen for a long LONG **LONG** time!

**THE END**


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